


Glass Buttons

by Dramance



Category: Coraline (2009), Invader Zim
Genre: Alternate Universe, Coraline AU, Dib-centric (Invader Zim), Enemies to Friends, Gen, Ghosts, Horror, IZ episodes canon, Inspired by Coraline, Monsters, No Romance, Not a Crossover, Older Characters, Paranormal, Swearing, The movie Coraline with some of the book, Will add tags as I go, ZADE, ZADF, slight angst
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-12-20
Updated: 2020-03-24
Packaged: 2021-02-26 00:22:26
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 5
Words: 29,372
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21874363
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Dramance/pseuds/Dramance
Summary: It's been three years since Zim arrived on Earth, and Dib has been there every step of the way to ensure the alien won't take it over. He collects evidence on the alien, but when the Swollen Eyeballs ask for his findings, all he can produce are blurry photos. Frustrated with his hard work gone to waste and desperate to prove himself to the Swollen Eyeballs, Dib discovers that there's an old house just outside town that's supposedly rich with ghosts and surrounded by mysteries of child disappearances.He reluctantly decides to check out the claims and quickly discovers that there is more history behind the house than he first believed. And when he finds a little button key and a magic corridor that leads him to a life he's always wanted, Dib can't help but get sucked into the adventure.
Relationships: Dib & Gaz (Invader Zim), Dib & Professor Membrane, Dib & Zim (Invader Zim)
Comments: 56
Kudos: 127





	1. Another Long Day

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Original idea by Ollisuu on Tumblr

It was another long day at school for Dib. Another day of boring lectures on information he didn’t care for. Another day of disgusting, inedible lunches that should’ve never passed as food. Another day of slipping into bathrooms to avoid the bullies waiting to grab him in the hallways, and then still ending up with a wedgie anyway. And, the most important, annoying little detail, another day of Zim.

The short, little Irken was up to no good again, cackling obnoxiously throughout the last period lecture and grating every one of Dib’s last nerves. His eyes never left the alien, not even to blink for fear that he would miss an important detail that could reveal what the alien’s next plan was. His eyes hurt from how long he stared. How long had it been since he last blinked? Five minutes? Ten? Longer? He didn’t know, and he didn’t want to think about it. He forced himself to keep all his thoughts trained on Zim and his yet-to-be-revealed plan.

It had been three years since Zim had arrived on Earth. Three years since Dib’s life had transformed from fantasies and theories into cold, hard facts. He had always known aliens were real, much like how he knew the paranormal was real, but he could never prove it to the world around him; especially ghosts, they had this nasty habit of disappearing on him whenever Dib tried to expose them, and they never showed up on film, which was annoying. Not only that, but those Dib tried to show his discoveries to wrote him off as crazy or would come up with some bizarre reason as to why his discovery wasn’t real. His dad was the main person behind those arguments.

When Zim showed up, Dib was sure his luck had changed. He was sure he would be able to finally prove that he was actually right; that he wasn’t crazy. That first day the Irken showed up, his disguise was nothing more than a wig and violet contact lenses paired with a weird pink dress, gloves, boots and leggings (which Dib had come to understand as the typical Irken Invader uniform, sans the wig and contacts). He had green skin, no nose or ears, three fingers on each hand, and razor-like teeth that looked strangely like a zipper, at least to Dib. He was certain that he could get his classmates to see the obvious alien sitting among them, but they were oblivious, believing Zim’s lie about a “skin condition” being the reason his skin was green and had no ears or nose. It was baffling.

But it didn’t deter him. He knew if he could get the alien out of his disguise, he would prove to the world what Zim was: an alien, a freak, a monster. On paper, the concept didn’t sound so hard, but the execution ended up being harder than he ever thought possible. Zim was a formidable foe, matching his moves just like how Dib matched his. They were always ready for each other when one threatened to take the other down, which happened to be Dib taking down Zim in most cases. However, even if it wasn’t hard for Dib to get a simple photo of Zim exposing his antennae and magenta eyes, it was the fact that the human race didn’t seem to care about it.

Dib could handle Zim and his plans to take over the world. He’d survived a giant water-balloon fight, a forced organ transplant, weird time jumps with his life at stake, a wormhole, a giant hamster the size of Godzilla, the list went on. Hell, Dib had even gone to space and flew the planet Mercury (which was actually a satellite in disguise) and battled Zim, who was flying the planet Mars (another disguised satellite) in an attempt to destroy the Earth. Dib didn’t consider himself one to brag, but he didn’t call himself “The protector of Earth” for nothing, after all.

No, Dib could easily handle Zim, but what he found himself not being able to handle so well was this weird…emptiness inside him. At first, Dib thought it was his body reacting weirdly to the weird organ transplant Zim had put him through years ago in elementary skool, where his lungs were replaced by a moo box; not one of Dib’s proudest moments. However, he knew that wasn’t the reason. That was something physical, and his thoughts were put at ease when he did a few CT scans on himself. This feeling seemed to be more…emotional.

Dib couldn’t recall when he had first noticed the emptiness’s existence, but the more he thought about it he was able to feel it earlier and earlier in his memories, as far back as his early childhood, probably. He wasn’t exactly sure how to describe it other than just as emptiness, but he found that the best way to think about it was like there was a hole in his chest. He could function normally like anyone else, but he didn’t feel complete, per say; he could never feel truly happy. And no matter what he did, whether it be doing well in skool, working on Tak’s broken ship that was still in his garage, or fighting Zim, nothing seemed to fill it; not completely, at least.

Dib shook his head to rid himself of those thoughts and cringed when he blinked for the first time in what felt like hours. Tears had started streaming down his face in an attempt to keep his eyeballs from drying out, and he hadn’t noticed how much they burned his aching eyes until he had closed them. He hissed quietly, flinching as he rubbed his eyes roughly with his palms. Even doing something as simple as watching Zim was physically straining on his body.

“What’s the matter, Dib-Thing?” Zim’s voice interrupted the teacher’s lecture. “Are you cowering in fear already at Zim’s plan? I haven’t even revealed what it is yet!” His maniacal laughter echoed throughout the room.

Dib could feel an entire classroom’s worth of eyes on him even though he was still rubbing his own. He cursed under his breath and managed to meet Zim’s gaze, who was sporting an evil grin and flashing his sharp teeth. Dib scowled and clenched his fists, trying to ignore the tears still lightly falling from his eyes. “Shut up, Space Boy. You’re not taking over Earth!”

Dib thought he sounded threatening, even if the Irken was never intimidated by him, but he could tell from the snickers that floated about the room that he didn’t look threatening.

“Wow, never thought you were a crier, Dib,” someone snickered. “Need a tissue?”

“I’m not crying! My eyes hurt!” Dib knew better than to respond, but the words slipped out before he could stop them. The class was laughing as soon as he finished his sentence.

Zim laughed along with them. “That’s right! Cry, Dib-monkey, for soon Zim will forsake you to my most diabolical plan yet!”

“Zim, be quiet before I send you to the underground classroom!” Miss Bitters scolded. Even though he and his classmates were no longer in elementary skool, Miss Bitters was still their teacher. When Dib questioned her, she had mentioned something about budget cuts and not being able to hire teachers to teach all the classes. Thus, Miss Bitters still watched over them, even years later in hi skool.

Dib wiped the tears from his face and composed himself. He’d love to fling his tears at Zim and burn his stupid, water-sensitive skin, but he didn’t want to look like an even bigger freak than he was already labeled as by his apathetic peers. Zim went back to cackling quietly and glared at Dib through squinted eyes, not even bothering to hide the evil smile that graced his face. Dib returned the look with a scowl, determined to match the Irken just like he did every other day and hoping that he wouldn’t shed any more tears in the process. Just another long day.

* * *

Dib punched the brick wall of the nearest building when Zim disappeared around a corner, and then immediately regretted that decision when it started throbbing. Normally Dib enjoyed playing the hero and the thrill of chasing Zim around the city, putting a stop to his evil schemes. However, he found it incredibly frustrating when Zim used his own Irken technology against him, leaving him in the dust. He was jealous of Zim’s PAK legs, his spider-like limb enhancers, and how purposeful they could be. Dib would never admit it out loud, but he would often fantasize about what it would be like to use technology like that. If he ever got Zim on an autopsy table, his PAK would be the thing he would spend the most time experimenting on.

“I’ll get you, you alien scum! I’ll find out what you’re planning soon, Zim, and when I do, I’m going to stop you!” Dib shouted at the dead end that Zim had scaled over. He was positive he heard the space bug’s laughter as he cradled his hand and headed home.

It took him over an hour to finally reach the front steps of his house, and when he finally did, he all but collapsed when he opened the door. It was already hot outside, and the walk halfway across town in jeans, boots, and a trench coat had him dripping with sweat. His back ached from having to lug his heavy schoolbag, and his hand was throbbing so much he feared he broke it.

Dib relished the cool air conditioning that greeted him when he finally walked into his house. He slammed the door shut and leaned heavily against it, catching his breath and shedding his coat to relieve his body of heat.

“Finally crawled back home after Zim beat the crap outa you?” Gaz called from the couch.

Dib rolled his eyes. “I didn’t get beat up, Gaz.”

She grumbled in response, and Dib heard her fingers tapping away at the controls of her Gameslave. Another typical interaction with his sister. Dib scowled at the tuft of purple hair that was visible over the back of the couch, but didn’t bother to say anything more, ignoring the weird ache in his chest at the mention of his failed attempt to stop Zim. Or maybe it was because Gaz hadn’t bothered to ask how he was. He shook his head.

He peeled himself off the door and made his way to the kitchen. He hadn’t realized how hungry he was until his stomach was screaming at him to eat something. He shouldn’t be surprised; his eating habits were atrocious. He never ate breakfast, instead replacing it with a cup of coffee to wake him up faster, never ate lunch because of how poisonous the food was (he swore up and down to Gaz that every time he got food poisoning was because he had given in and decided to eat lunch that day), and dinner was more often than not just a granola bar because there wasn’t anything else to eat in the house. Gaz often ordered pizza, but that was mainly for herself and Dib wasn’t risking his hands, or life, just to satisfy his hunger. At times, Gaz was kind enough to leave him one slice of pizza, but he learned not to depend on her for that.

So, he wasn’t surprised when he opened the refrigerator and only found some fruit with questionable freshness. He heaved sigh and closed the door. Of course dad hadn’t bothered to go out and get them things. It was so far from unusual that Dib would argue it was the norm. Sure, their dad made a lot of money that he shared with his kids, but most of it went towards their college funds that they were not allowed to touch. Though, Dib bet he could hack into that account and pull a few hundred dollars from it, just enough to not tip off his dad. He knew better than to mess with that, though.

His made his way out of the kitchen, ignoring the protests that his stomach gave him, and made his way upstairs. Once in his room, he threw his coat and bag into the closet and kicked off his boots. He groaned as he flopped onto his chair, his legs like jelly. He’d get back at Zim for the day he had, oh he would make sure of that.

Dib flinched as he checked his hand again. It still throbbed painfully and was most likely broken. He had to set it if he wanted to reduce the pain, but it would be difficult with one hand, and he knew Gaz wouldn’t help, not that she cared to anyway.

Dib pulled out one of the med kits he “borrowed” from his dad’s lab and got to work. Forty-five minutes and a few shed tears later, the wrist was mostly bandaged right, at least as good as it would get with only one working hand. Dib tossed the med kit back into the drawer and pulled up his email. He had an email from the Swollen Eyeballs, his secret organization he was apart of. Dib caught his breath. It had been a while since he’d reported to them, have they contacted him to tell him he’s going to be kicked out for not catching Zim?

He shook his head. “That’s stupid. Why would they do that? They invited me in because they believed me about Zim, why would they suddenly dump everything I’ve worked hard to prove just because it’s taking longer than necessary to catch him? I shouldn’t be worried. I’m not worried. I’m…talking to myself again, aren’t I? I have got to stop doing that…”

Dib shook his head again and opened the email.

_Dear Agent Mothman,_

_It has been a while since we have last heard from you. We wanted to know how your alien situation was going. Have you anything of note to report on your progress? We need proof that you are still willing to help our cause._

_If you don’t have anything of note to report, then you will need to find something else to report on. Failure to do so and we will be forced to drop you from the organization. We only have room for those willing to hunt, not those who think they want to. Email us within the next forty-eight hours of your progress or we will terminate you._

_Agent Darkbooty_

The message was sent twenty-four hours ago.

Dib cursed and nearly slammed his injured fist on his desk, stopping himself just before he did that. He was frustrated with himself in getting so worked up about Zim that he hadn’t even bothered to be concerned with the Eyeballs. When had that happened? It was so much easier when he was younger and not stressed about so many things.

He sighed again. “Don’t worry. You got plenty of things on Zim to report. Plenty. You’ll send them in, and the Eyeballs won’t have to worry about…I’m talking to myself again…”

Dib groaned and got up from his chair, going over to his closet and pulling out boxes and boxes of Zim-related evidence. He would definitely be able to find something in one of those boxes that was of worth to the Eyeballs. He had to.

The first hour seemed promising with finding evidence, but it became clear rather quickly that most of the evidence Dib had collected was complete crap. He had photos of Zim, sure, but not incriminating photos. He knew he had photos of Zim both in and out of his disguise, but every photo he had was blurry. At least half of them weren’t even shots of Zim’s face, instead being random captures of his limbs. He found a couple showing Zim’s antennae or magenta eyes, but the shots were out of focus or didn’t have enough of Zim in the picture to be able to tell without a doubt that it was him. Another two hours and Dib was kicking the boxes of his hard-earned “evidence” across the room and burying his face in his knees.

Three years of hard work and he had nothing to show for it. Dib was beside himself, but he wasn’t sure if he wanted to scream curse words at the ceiling for an hour or curl up and cry again. He decided neither would benefit him in this situation, even if he felt like he would end up doing one of those options at some point tonight. In a situation like this, he’d normally try to convince himself to go out and search for Zim right at that moment, demand to know his plan of world domination, and then proceed to stop him while taking a few photos of the alien along the way. However, Dib didn’t feel like setting himself up for another failure that night.

He wasn’t sure how long he sat on the floor for, but he finally decided to get up and sit somewhere more comfortable when his ass started to go numb. It was dark outside now, so Dib turned on his desk lamp. He could smell pizza from downstairs, which meant that Gaz had ordered some and probably had no intention of sharing with him. He was fine with that, even if his stomach screamed that he shouldn’t be.

He sat down in his chair again and pulled up a paranormal website. If he wasn’t going to report his findings on Zim, then he was going to have to find something else and fast. He had less than twenty-four hours, after all. Another few hours were spent combing through various websites about haunted objects, haunted houses, vampire or bigfeets sightings, he even found a few websites about Mothman and where to find him. He would’ve liked reporting on Mothman, but his places of sighting were no where near where Dib lived. He didn’t have the time to get on a bus to go chase him. He needed something quick and nearby. Hell, he’d even reinvestigate Chickenfoot.

When the clock on his computer show 2 a.m., Dib decided that he should turn in for the night. He wanted to stay up and find something to report on just so the deadline wasn’t pestering him in his dreams, but he found that it was getting harder and harder to keep his eyes open and his head up. He sighed and went to close out the website when a new comment popped up on the site he was on detailing information about old haunted houses. It was from an anonymous user.

“Heard there was a creepy old well not far from the suburbs up north outside town,” the message read. “It’s supposedly so deep that if you fell into it, you’d see a sky full of stars in the middle of the day.”

Dib raised an eyebrow at that. There were plenty of old wells around here, and some of them ran pretty deep. Nothing unusual, let alone paranormal, about that.

He was about to close the website again when another comment popped up, supposedly from the same anonymous user. “The well is supposedly near this old abandoned house that hasn’t been touched in years. Heard that kids went missing around there. Creepy shit.”

Dib made a pensive face. Children going missing. That wasn’t exactly paranormal, but it was intriguing. Children were interesting cases if they’re discovered to be connected to the paranormal. They often end up being very powerful spirits and could easily take down a professional paranormal investigator if they were not careful. But again, just because a child goes missing doesn’t mean it was paranormal.

Another message. “The house is said to be haunted. No one’s touched it in decades, and it ought to be a pretty awesome site to investigate.”

“Really now? Are you trying to entice me, website?” Dib mused, a soft smile spreading on his lips, before quickly dropping it. “You better not answer me, or I swear I’m chucking you out the window.”

Luckily, the computer nor the anonymous user on the website didn’t answer him back, which Dib breathed a sigh of relief for. He sat back in his chair and read over the messages again and again. He vaguely knew where the user was talking about, he passed by the main road that led out of town when he walked to skool in the morning, so it wasn’t too far. But again, nothing about this screamed paranormal, aside from this supposed haunted house where children happened to disappear. Even if it was too good to be true, he couldn’t email the Eyeballs back with anonymous comments as evidence. If he wanted to test the validity of these claims, he’d have to check the place out himself.

Dib gave a satisfied nod and bookmarked the website so he could go back to it for reference later and striped out of his clothes. He had forgotten to change out of them earlier that day and take a shower, and he cringed as he finally realized how gross he was. However, because of how late it was, combined with how exhausted he felt and that he didn’t want to disturb Gaz, he decided that he’d deal with his hygiene in the morning. He pulled on a relatively clean shirt and some boxer shorts, turned out the light on his desk, and crawled on the covers. “I’ll check out the well and the house tomorrow…” he yawned, his eyes sliding closed as he flopped onto the pillow. He was snoring within the next minute.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hope you enjoyed the first chapter! This work was actually inspired by some art I saw on tumblr (which is amazing, please go check it out) and it will be featured throughout the story as it's being written.  
> I'm currently on break from school, so I will try to write and post as many chapters as possible before I go back. But I do intend on finishing this work before I move onto another story I have planned involving Invader Zim.  
> I do have permission from the artist to write this fic.


	2. The Doll

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you to those who checked out the first chapter and left a kudos and even bookmarked it! I was worried people wouldn't read it, but thank you for taking the time to do so!  
> The chapters are going to get longer from here, so when I update, it should be a long and (hopefully) fun read.  
> Anyway, hope y'all enjoy this chapter! Leave a comment or review if you'd like, too!

Dib’s alarm went off at 6 a.m., and he was exhausted. Four hours of sleep was not the recommended amount for a young teenager, but he’d been able to survive with no sleep before, so he would manage after a shower and some coffee. Still, waking up early to go to a place where no one liked him was not a good motivator to peel himself from his warm sheets. Somehow, he managed to do so.

Gaz normally didn’t wake up until seven, so Dib took his time in the bathroom, letting the hot water pour over his skin and cleanse him of dried sweat. He had to remove the makeshift splint he made the night before for his hand, which still throbbed horribly, and did his best to avoid using it as he cleaned himself. He found it difficult to wash his hair with one hand, but not too bad. He wasn’t sure how long he spent in there, but it was long enough to where his fingers started to get wrinkly. He turned off the water, stepped out, and dried himself off. He wiped steam off the mirror and examined himself.

He was incredibly pasty, so much so that if he wasn’t looking at his own reflection, he’d swear he was a vampire. His pale skin made the tufts of jet-black hair poking out of his skin stand out even more so. He ran his good hand through his hair to try and smooth out the scythe-like cowlick that he’d been stuck with for as long as he could remember; as he suspected, the piece of hair popped back up, much to his dismay. His big round glasses were worn out and bent out of their original shape, which wasn’t unusual considering how often he got tossed around in the hallways. Still, it sucked that he had to get new glasses almost every week. His amber eyes popped from behind the lenses, sinking into his skull from lack of sleep. He sighed and grabbed a brush to try and tame his unruly hair, even though he knew that wouldn’t help.

Once he exited the bathroom, he made his way back to his room and got dressed. He managed to find a relatively clean shirt and pants but looking at the large pile of dirty clothes meant he had to give in and wash them soon. He’d worry about that later, though. Right now, he had a well to find.

After he got the rest of his things together for school, wrapping his wrist once more and grabbing a few tools he needed for his morning expedition, Dib made his way down to the kitchen and made his morning coffee breakfast. While it was brewing, Dib wrote a quick note to Gaz.

_Hey, Gaz._

_Gone to school early today. I’ll also be busy after school. Don’t wait for me._

_Dib_

Dib didn’t know why he bothered with the note, as Gaz probably would’ve just grunted at it, if she even bothered to read it, that was. Oh well, it didn’t matter if she did or didn’t, at least he tried to tell her. Soon, his coffee finished brewing and he was out the door by seven.

The air was sultry, which made it difficult to take in deep breaths, and it was incredibly foggy. It must’ve rained the night before at some point because there were stray puddles littered around the sidewalk. Dib took care not to step in them and risk dirtying himself before the day even started. It was one thing to get dirty during his daily scuffles with Zim, but it was another to do so because he wasn’t watching where he was going. Plus, he had just showered and didn’t want to ruin the last clean outfit he had, lest he did laundry sooner rather than later.

As he made his way along the sidewalk, he involuntarily walked by the neon green house that had parked itself at the end of the cul-de-sac near his house three years earlier. He stopped to stare at the house, even though he had no intention of doing anything to spy on Zim this morning. The memories of yesterday’s chase flitted through his mind briefly and he scowled. The gnomes in the front yard glared at him with their glass eyes and beady black pupils. He normally would find himself doing acrobatic tricks just to get around them and bang on the front door of the house, but he held back. He wasn’t going to risk getting his hopes up on getting any evidence from the alien when he was on a deadline of less than twelve hours now. He’d deal with Zim at skool. So, with more will than he cared to admit, Dib turned and walked away from the house.

The way to the road outside of town wasn’t far from the path he normally trekked to skool, the path diverging a couple blocks from the building. Soon, Dib found himself heading into the outskirts of town. The tall buildings and coffee shops shrank into two story houses with front yards, and then soon those disappeared, too, becoming hills. Dib hiked up onto one of the hills, minding the muddy ground that threatened to unbalance him and send him toppling down.

When he made it to the top, he brought out his advanced binoculars of his own invention and placed them on top of his head. Based on the anonymous comment, the well was said to be nestled near an old apple orchard, supposedly abandoned. Dib recalled there being an orchard somewhere around here, but it had been a while since he had gone outside the city and done paranormal hunts; he wouldn’t be surprised if the last time he had gone hunting for the paranormal was before Zim showed up.

He shook his head. “Stop thinking about that green idiot,” he mumbled. “Focus on finding the well, you’ll deal with him later.”

The fog was annoying to deal with, but it was starting to clear up now that the sun was peeking out from behind the overcast sky. Dib adjusted a nob on his goggles to clear his vision and zoom in across the landscape. Slowly, he ran his eyes over the setting. Surprisingly, there were a lot more hills and small cliff faces around here than he remembered, along with a small forest in the far distance; shows how much he got out. He’d have to remind himself later to go explore this area again in the future for possible paranormal hunts.

Eventually, his eyes landed on a small, barren cluster of trees. He adjusted his goggles again to inspect them closer and noticed a few picnic tables, wheelbarrows, and baskets, all of which looked neglected. He guessed that was the apple orchard, but he didn’t see a well nearby. He could’ve sworn that the comment mentioned the well being in the orchard. Was he wrong?

He pulled off his binoculars and carefully trudged down the hill towards the orchard, nearly slipping down into the mud on a few occasions. Eventually, he made his way into the orchard and took in his surroundings. There was nothing spectacular about the place, he’d been to plenty of abandoned places before and this wasn’t too far from the ordinary. Rotting tools and tables and dead trees weren’t interesting, though since it was still a little overcast, the place wasn’t inviting either. He’d have to do some research on this place to see when it was abandoned.

Dib walked around the perimeter of the orchard, then slowly circled back towards the center to see if he could find the well. Perhaps it was a small well, or even disguised to blend in with the orchard. Or maybe since the place looked so old and was severely neglected, the well was gone. He was starting to wonder if following an anonymous post about a possible (and he used the term loosely) paranormal site was a good idea after all. He must’ve been desperate to have dropped Zim for something like this.

He heaved a sigh and slumped onto an old tree stump next to a circle of mushrooms. “This was stupid. I would’ve had better luck demanding Zim for a photo shoot.” He had no idea if that would’ve been easier or not, but the idea sounded a lot more interesting than plodding through a muddy old orchard. His boots were caked with mud and he was starting to sweat again, though not as bad as he did yesterday. He might as well head to school and try to trick Zim into a scenario where he would remove his disguise.

A noise caught Dib’s attention as he was about to get to his feet. Dib froze and trained his ears to focus on the noise. The air seemed thicker as the sun continued to peek from behind the clouds, but that didn’t make the setting any less unnerving. A chill went up his spine. The noise sounded again, like something was scratching nails against rocks. It was louder this time and Dib’s hair stood on end.

Dib jumped to his feet. “Who’s there?!”

Another scratching noise sounded. It came from behind him, and Dib spun on his heels. His eyes scanned the trees. What kind of creatures lived out here? Wolves? Coyotes? Stray cats? Or was it paranormal activity? There weren’t many ghosts that liked to haunt during the day, but those that did were not spirits to mess around with, unless you had the proper equipment, which Dib, of course, didn’t.

Dib took in a breath to calm his nerves. He’d been in worse situations before, thanks to Zim. This wasn’t so much scary, more just unnerving. He could handle this, even with his lack of equipment. Perhaps this would turn out to be an interesting place after all.

Dib popped his binoculars back on his head and twisted another nob, one used to expose ghosts who liked to hide or were harder to make out, especially in daylight. He scanned the trees closely again, his body stiff and ready to run in case something came charging at him.

“Hello?” he tried again. The old trees creaked as a slight breeze drifted through. “My name’s Dib. Sorry if I disturbed you. I’m a paranormal investigator, well, paranormal investigator in training, I guess. I promise I won’t hurt you.”

More scratching noises, this time accompanied by a high-pitched giggle. Dib recalled the comment about children going missing around this are. Maybe one of them got into a freak accident around the orchard and now haunts this place. That would explain why it was abandoned. Dib couldn’t imagine any normal person wanting to hang around a place with a vengeful child ghost, including himself. And since he didn’t have any proper paranormal equipment with him, he had to be careful how he approached it, lest he wanted to join the poor kid in haunting this old place.

“You like hanging out around here? What’s it like?” Dib continued. Child ghosts liked to talk about themselves, much like how normal children did. If Dib didn’t want to get in trouble with the child, he would have to get it talking. He slowly inched forward towards the circle of mushrooms, mud squishing under his boots. “Was it pretty around here before?”

The sound that followed was even louder, and Dib could’ve sworn that he heard words accompany it. But whatever those words were, he couldn’t make them out. He ignored another chill that crawled up his spine.

“Where are you? Do you wanna come out?”

The noise sounded incredibly close now, like it was directly on top of him. Dib spun in place, the ground sinking beneath him as he tryed to locate the origin, but he couldn’t pinpoint it. It was so close, he knew it, but where? He flinched as a thought occurred to him. He looked above his head. He wasn’t exactly sure what to expect, maybe a basket of apples about to be dumped on his head or worse.

Nothing was there.

Dib raised an eyebrow. He could’ve sworn that’s where—

Dib shrieked as he was flung upwards. His stomach lurched as he went airborne and his arms and legs flailed about. He landed hard on the ground, tumbling through the mud and sliding down the hill of the orchard. His chest contracted as the breath was knocked from him, and he gasped and flailed trying to regain it. He tried to compose himself as he heard that same laughter again, and for some sickening reason it sounded familiar.

Dib tried to sit up and look for the source of the laughter, but everything was fuzzy now. For a terrifying moment, Dib was scared he hit his head and gave himself a concussion, but then realized that his glasses had just been thrown in his confusion. Dib gasped and coughed as he desperately tried to regain his breath. He frantically searched the mud for his stupid glasses (they always seemed to hinder him in the worst of times) and shrieked again when something climbed on top of him. He flailed his arms over his chest, trying to push away whatever had climbed onto him, and kicked his legs to scramble away.

“HI, MARY!”

Dib froze. He couldn’t have heard that right, even if the ringing in his ears argued otherwise. Dib looked down. Even though everything was still fuzzy, he made out a small, silver shape with two glowing teal eyes. Dib didn’t need to have his glasses to bet that the thing was even smiling at him.

“Gir?” he asked.

“HI, MARY!”

“What are you—”

“HI, MARY!”

“Gir—”

“HI, MARY!”

“Shut up!”

The SIR unit giggled in response but didn’t say anything more. Dib groaned as he propped himself up on his elbows and sat up. Gir didn’t bother to move; not that he weighed much, but Dib’s chest still ached from having the wind knocked from him, so his weight didn’t help either. He felt along the ground and eventually found his glasses, cringing when he noticed how much mud was coated on them. He did his best to wipe it off before sticking the smudged glasses back on his face; he’d clean them better once he found a bathroom.

His vision sharpened and Gir giggled, waving his little arm frenetically at him. “You look like a pig!”

Gir was…an interesting creature. The robot accompanied Zim when he arrived on Earth, and he claimed Gir was his loyal service drone made to be at the Irken’s beck and call. However, Dib’s impression of Gir was that he was straight up insane. He went out in his weird green dog suit (another thing that the human race failed to notice was weird) and brought Zim bizarre oddities and trophies. Every time Dib encountered him, he was drinking a chocolate bubblegum milkshake, slurping it obnoxiously; Dib had often wondered how he was able to consume food products at all, considering he was, you know, a robot. Dib could also never understand the little SIR unit’s actions, sayings, or thoughts; actually, he wasn’t sure if he wanted to understand his thoughts, if the robot’s random outbursts were any indication.

“I’m not a pig,” Did stated coolly, raising an eyebrow.

“Yes, you is! You rolled in the mud!”

Dib looked down at himself. Now that his glasses were back, he could see that he was indeed covered in mud. His boots were caked, his blue jeans were now brown, his trench coat was stiff and wet, and his shirt had muddy smears running in different directions, most likely from Gir and himself. He groaned and ran a hand through his hair, only to groan louder when he felt muddy chunks slide through his fingers.

“God damnit! I just showered!” Dib shoved the robot off his chest and stood. He fished his phone, unsurprisingly muddy as well, out from his pocket and checked the time. It was already 7:45 a.m. Dib cursed under his breath; that wasn’t enough time to go home and shower again before school. If he wasn’t so worried about the school contacting his dad if he were to no show, he would’ve gladly skipped first period.

Gir laughed maniacally and started rolling around in the mud. “I’m making mud people! Mary, make mud people with me!”

“No. I’m not rolling around in the mud again.”

Gir sat up stiffly and looked up at him. Tears gathered in his eyes and he opened his mouth, letting out a high-pitched scream.

Dib flinched and covered his ears while the robot threw a temper tantrum and flung mud around, some of it ending up on Dib. He didn’t mean to make Gir upset, but he also didn’t want to comply with his ridiculous request. He looked up the hill at the body sized impacts and skid marks that he had made when he was flung. “Look, Gir. I already made some.” He gestured to the dents in the ground and the robot’s crying quickly ceased, being replaced with a wide grin.

“Yaaaaaay!” he squealed, getting up and diving into one of the holes, proceeding to roll around again.

Dib breathed a relieving sigh and trudged back up the hill again. When he reached the stump, he pulled out the spare rag he kept in his bag and did his best to remove the excess mud from his body. “Stupid robot,” he grumbled.

Dib shook out the rag to rid it of the dirt and hissed in pain. His wrist was hurting again, and he must’ve not realized it due to the adrenaline from before. He held the injured appendage to his chest and did his best to ignore the pain while he continued to clean himself.

When he was done, he stuffed the rag and the binoculars back in his bag. He glanced over his shoulder at Gir, still enjoying himself in the mud, and rolled his eyes. He could kick himself for not recognizing the obnoxious little bot’s laughter. “Can’t believe I ran into you of all things out here.”

“Awww, did I scare you?” Gir asked. He stopped rolling in the mud and was on his stomach, his head propped in his little hands and his legs swinging behind his head.

“I wasn’t scared!” Dib quickly denied, his cheeks flushing. Though he didn’t know why he had to justify himself. “You just…came out of nowhere. Actually, where did you come from?”

“I jumped outta da ground!”

“Jumped out of the…?” Dib turned back towards the stump and peeked over it. Sure enough, there was a hole in the ground, right in the middle of the circle of mushrooms. He knelt to inspect the hole and found it to be deeper than he originally inspected, with no end in sight. Was this it? The well? It definitely wasn’t what Dib was expecting when he thought of a well. He figured there would be some sort of structure above the well to be able to prevent people from falling in and pulley system for gathering water.

“I went swimming!”

“Why were you in the well?” Dib mused.

“I went explorin’ and fell down a hole, then I got out and I was swimming, so I climbed out! It was fun!” Gir closed his eyes and stuck out his tongue, a dopey smile on his face.

“So, wait? That was you making that noise? There’re no ghosts around here?”

“I’m a ghost!” the robot blew a raspberry.

Dib sighed. “Of course there’s no ghosts around here. Why would there be? My source is an anonymous comment on a random website. That’s credible. Good job, _Dib!”_ Dib threw his hands into the air and groaned loudly before placing his face into his hands. “Stupid, stupid, stupid. I never should’ve fallen for something too good to be true.”

“Mary’s all muddy. Gotta make mini Mary all muddy, too!”

“That’s great, Gir. You do that.” Dib mumbled through his fingers. He got up and yanked his bag off the stump and started walking away.

Yaaay!” Gir squealed again. “Mini Mary’s all muddy and his head is big, too!”

“My head’s not—!” Dib stopped mid-gait. “Mini Mary?”

“Why is his head so big?” Gir said in a sing-song voice repeatedly. Dib turned around to face the SIR unit. Gir was still sitting on the ground, but this time he had something in his hands. He looked up to meet Dib’s gaze. “Look! It’s you but little! You is so cuuuute!” He held up the object in his hands. It was a little doll covered in mud with jet black hair and a black trench coat.

Dib did a double take. “Where did you—”

“I’m gonna chew on his head!” Gir announced and then proceeded to suck on the doll’s head like a lollipop.

“Hey, no! Gross!” Dib went to the robot’s side and yanked the doll from his mouth.

Gir screamed in protest and pounced on Dib’s chest, nearly toppling him into the mud again. “Give it back, give it back, give it back!” he screamed as he pounded his fists against Dib’s body.

“Gir, I have chocolate. I’ll trade you the doll for some chocolate.”

The SIR unit stopped pounding his chest and smiled. “I wants chocolate!”

“You gotta get off me first and let me keep…mini Mary. Then I’ll give you the chocolate.”

Gir obeyed and stood at attention, saluting the human with his tongue sticking out. Dib knew better than to trade his only means of nutrition for the day, but if he knew that if he didn’t give the insane SIR unit anything in return for the doll then he would throw a temper tantrum. If he wanted to inspect the doll, he had to get Gir off his case, even if it meant his stomach would protest later. Dib pulled the candy bar from his bag and tossed it to Gir, who caught it with his mouth and started chomping on it, wrapper and all.

Dib sighed and looked over the doll in his hand. It was a cloth doll, hand sewn by the looks of it. Black yarn was used for its hair, styled just like Dib’s even down to the little scythe-like cowlick. It had on a leather black trench coat, a blue cotton shirt with a ghost on it, denim jeans, and even some black cloth boots. However, instead of having amber eyes and a small pair of glasses, the doll had black button eyes with a little black threading going over the nose to represent his glasses.

Dib furrowed his eyebrows, turning the doll over in his hands and wiping chunks of mud off its body. Why would a doll of himself exist and who would make it? Dib didn’t know anything about sewing and he doubted Gaz did either; though, he wouldn’t put it past her to make a creepy doll of him and threaten to do voodoo on him if he crossed her. He shuddered at the thought of Gaz having that power over him. His dad was too focused on real science to have a hobby like sewing. In fact, he couldn’t even imagine his dad picking up a needle and thread, he’d just build some robot to do the sewing for him, and that’s if he actually needed something sewn when he could just build whatever thing he needed. And Zim…

“Zim.” Dib growled and looked at Gir. “Zim made this and told you to give it to me, didn’t he?”

“Whaaa?” Gir stared at him with blank eyes, chocolate smeared outside his mouth and on his hands. Or maybe it was mud.

“He made this and put some kind of Irken technology in it, right? I bet it’s a tracking device, or a camera, or a device made to wipe my computers of any information I have on him, or a bomb!” Dib yelped at the thought, tossing the doll back to Gir, who smiled widely and hugged the doll tightly once it landed in his arms.

Dib took a step back and shuddered, shaking his hand like he had just touched something revolting. “Nice try, Zim, but I won’t be fooled that easily. I don’t know why you thought that would work, but if that was your “next greatest plan,” then it was poorly attempted. And seriously, a doll? That was the best you could do?” He didn’t even know the Irken knew how to sew. At least he had another thing to tease him about when he next encountered the alien.

Shaking his head and rolling his eyes, Dib turned away from Gir and made his way down the hill. The crappy start to the day was not the worst one he had, but he couldn’t help but feel disappointed. He was back at square one again with less than twelve hours to find something to investigate. Not to mention that he would be going to school looking like he just lost a mud-wrestling match; which he guessed wasn’t too far of a stretch considering Gir’s involvement. He sighed and stuffed his hands into his pockets and stared at the ground, not bothering to hurry down the road as he made his way to school.

* * *

Dib threw his backpack into his seat and left the classroom as quickly as possible to avoid the stares. Some kids had already snickered at him when he walked through the large double doors of the school building, but he was too annoyed to care. He stomped through the hallway and kicked open the bathroom door. Some boys were already in there, but Dib glared at them as he made his way over to a sink to inspect himself.

His appearance looked just like how Dib expected it to: chunks of mud and debris in his hair, smears on his face, and brown spots discoloring his clothes. Dib yanked some paper towels from the dispenser and ran them under some soap and water. He then proceeded to furiously rub at his body and clothes to remove the mud.

10 minutes later, Dib looked halfway presentable. He removed the orchard debris and some of the mud from his hair and cleaned up his face and glasses. His clothes still had the brown spots, but they were less prominent than they were before. The mud had dried and caked to his trench coat, though, which made it difficult for Dib to fully clean it, so he settled for just scraping off whatever would come off and would have to, begrudgingly, fully clean the coat later. He threw away the mass amounts of paper towels he used before finally exiting the bathroom and trudging back to class.

“—and that’s why the school board can’t afford to care about your mental states.” Ms. Bitters concluded as Dib walked through the door of the classroom.

He stared at the floor as the door closed behind him, knowing that everyone was staring at him. Slowly, he lifted his eyes to face Ms. Bitters, who narrowed her eyes dangerously and let out what he thought was a low growl. “Sorry I’m late,” he mumbled.

“You better be. You missed an important life lesson about how no one in the world will ever care about you.”

“Gee, thanks.”

“Just sit down and be quiet. I don’t wanna hear any outbursts from you today.”

Dib silently complied and plopped down in his seat. Ms. Bitters continued on with her meaningless lectures about life while the class blankly stared at her, himself included. Her lectures never changed over the years. She still gave them, what she probably called, “tough-love” life lessons that involved grim endings, and most often involved someone getting hurt in a horrifying way. Dib could care less. His body was tense from anger over this mornings failure and his mind raced with possible ideas that could at least buy him a little more time to report to the Eyeballs.

His eyes refused to leave the blackboard, though, because he knew if they did, he’d find himself glaring at Zim, who was for sure glaring at him right now. Dib didn’t want to give the Irken the satisfaction of glaring at him, not after the stunt he pulled with the stupid doll this morning. It was one thing for Dib to have believed uncredible material and waste his morning, but it was another thing entirely for Zim to send his SIR unit and mock him by shoving him in the mud and giving him a stupid look-a-like Lalaloopsy knockoff as bait for a trap.

Dib clenched his fists and hissed lightly, forgetting about his injured arm, yet again. He had to get his mind off the whole scenario before he ended up reinjuring his bad hand or injuring his good one. He took in a few breathes to calm himself and then reached into his backpack to pull out his notebook. He could at least pretend to take notes, or jot down some ideas that could help him with his situation, or doodle pictures of vivisecting Zim. That last one sounded pleasing.

Dib reached into his bag again to pull out a pen and his fingers brushed against something soft. Dib paused and felt the material, not recalling placing something of soft texture into his bag besides the rag, which was in the front pocket of his backpack. He pulled the zipper of the bag open wider and looked inside. His eyes widened.

It was the doll. The little Dib doll. It was in his backpack.

Dib pulled it out and examined it. It was now completely clean of mud despite Gir playing with it this morning, and its button eyes even glistened in the light. It was impossible. How could it be here? Dib had left it with Gir and left shortly after. There’s no way Gir could’ve slipped the doll into his backpack without him noticing, and he never came to the school unless instructed by Zim. He’d also had his backpack with him the entire time, except for when he had cleaned himself in the bathroom.

His eyes narrowed and he finally lifted his head to meet those fake violet irises. Zim’s eyes were narrowed and he was scowling, but he perked up when he saw that Dib had finally turned to catch his attention, his lips donning a smirk. Zim must’ve slipped the doll into his backpack when he was busy in the bathroom.

Dib wanted to chuck the doll across the room, let it hit Zim in the face and knock off that smug look. If he tumbled out of his chair, that would be extra satisfying, and if the class laughed at him, even better. But he held back, gripping the doll tightly in his palm. Ms. Bitters had already told him not to cause a scene, and he didn’t want to give Zim the satisfaction of causing himself embarrassment for getting called out. So, he waited, at least until after class.

When the bell rang, Dib waited until everyone else had left the room before going to stand in front of Zim’s desk, the doll in hand. Zim must’ve been expecting it, because he smirked and propped his feet up on the desk. “Oh, hello, Dib. Come to demand me of my latest, greatest plan to conquer your filthy race and this ball of dirt? Well, TOO BAD! Because I’m not going to tell you!” He let out a loud, maniacal laugh.

Dib rolled his eyes. “Shut up, bug. I already figured it out, and it’s not gonna work.”

Zim’s eyes narrowed. “You lie! You could never figure out Zim’s genius. Your brain meats wouldn’t have been able to comprehend it!”

“Oh, I understand it perfectly.” Dib slammed the doll on Zim’s desk. He wanted the Irken to flinch at the noise, but given the doll was made of cloth, it did little to sound threatening. “It’s pretty pathetic if you ask me.”

“Eh?! Pathetic?! Zim’s plans aren’t pathetic! You’re the pathetic one, filthy pig!”

“Making a look-a-like doll to spy on me _is_ pathetic, Zim. Seriously, how stupid do you think I am?”

“Eh?” Zim finally looked down at the doll on the desk and picked it up by its arm. “What, this thing? Why would Zim make such a stupid plaything for you of all things?”

“Don’t play stupid with me! I know you sent Gir out to give it to me _and_ you slipped it into my bag when I went to the bathroom! You think you’re so sneaky, Zim, but you’re not. So, keep your dumb doll. I got more important things to worry about.” Dib left the doll on the desk and slipped out of the door before Zim could make a retort.

The rest of the day continued without much excitement. Dib tuned out of every single class and focused on making notes for the Eyeballs, or at least that’s what he tried to do. No matter how many notes he took to try and come up with a plan, he just didn’t have the time to put anything together. Perhaps he should just send in the least blurry photos he had on Zim and hope that was acceptable, even if he knew it wouldn’t be.

Soon the final bell rang, and Dib groaned as he dumped his notebook and writing tools back into his bag. He only had a few hours left before he had to email the Eyeballs with an answer. As much as Dib wanted to figure something out with the little time he had left, he was tired and gross and extremely hungry since he had no lunch, the candy bar he brought being sacrificed to Gir earlier that day. He just wanted to go home and shower and just get the humiliation of being kicked out of the Eyeballs over with so he could curl up in his bed sheets and sleep.

He plodded to his locker and twisted the nob to open it. Once he did, he distractedly reached in to grab some books he needed for homework before heading home. However, instead of the hardcover books, Dib’s hand wrapped around something soft. He glanced up and did a double take. The Dib doll was sitting in his locker, staring at him with its button eyes.

“What the fuck?” he breathed, a combination of confusion and surprise laced in his voice. It didn’t last long before his eyes narrowed and he growled, yanking the doll and slamming his locker.

“Zim!” Dib called, stomping over to the alien, whose locker was just a few down the hall.

Zim looked up at him and rolled his eyes before turning away again. “What do you want, Dib-Thing? Zim is busy.”

“I told you to take your stupid doll back and you sneak it into my locker? I told you I’m not falling for it!” This time, Dib didn’t hold back, and he threw the doll at Zim. It hit him square in the face and the books he was grabbing from his locker were sent tumbling to the ground.

The hallway, which was bustling with talking students, grew quiet. Zim peeled the doll from his face and clenched it in his fist. “I told you, Zim didn’t make your pathetic plaything! Leave me be, I have important matters to attend to!” Zim flung the doll back at Dib, who caught it just before it hit him in the face, too.

“Stop lying! You had Gir follow me out of town to spy on me and he had _this!”_ Dib held the doll up. “Who else would make something that looks like me? What are you planning?”

Zim glared at him and opened his mouth to say something, but his eyes drifted around the hallway. After a quick moment, he met Dib’s eyes again and smirked. “I really don’t know how my dog got a hold of your plaything, Dib,” he said sweetly, smiling in an innocent way that was so not Zim. “You should really keep track of your things better.”

Around them, the students snickered. “Didn’t know you played with dolls, Dib. Got more at home?” some asked. Laughter echoed around the hall.

Despite himself, Dib’s face flushed. “No! I don’t play with dolls! Zim made this thing to spy on me!”

“It’s ok, Dib. Don’t be afraid of what you’re into. We all have guilty pleasures,” another said.

“Nah, he’s just a weirdo. I bet he gets off on that thing.” a third voice said.

Dib’s face burned, though he wasn’t sure if that was from anger or embarrassment. “I don’t play with dolls! Zim is lying!” The laughter only continued.

“What’s the matter, human? Are you upset?” Zim cooed.

Dib turned back to face Zim, who was grinning evilly. Dib could swear that he could see the pink glow of his alien eyes from behind the contacts. Before Dib could react, Zim turned and started racing towards the front doors of the school.

“Hey! Get back here, you space freak!” Dib charged after him.

The two burst through the doors of the school and flew down the front steps. They cut across the front lawn and narrowly avoided traffic as they dodged into the street, before ducking into an alley. Zim was cackling the entire time and bragging that Dib wouldn’t catch him, but Dib knew he would. He had grown a bit in the past three years, and while he was only a few inches taller than Zim, his stride was still longer, and therefore he could catch up with the alien much quicker. Zim let out a surprised yelp when Dib grabbed his shoulder and pulled him backwards.

“Filthy worm-child! Unhand Zim this instant!” Zim snarled as he tried to yank his arm free.

“Not until you tell me why you want me to have the doll!” Dib shouted, tackling Zim to the ground and holding him there.

“Enough with your stupid plaything! Release me or I will claw your eyes out!” To prove his point, Zim slashed out at Dib’s face, nearly catching his cheek.

“Of course you made it!”

“I didn’t make the thing! I don’t even know where Gir got it from!”

“Stop lying!”

“You’re lying!”

“I’m lying!”

Zim and Dib stopped struggling and turned to face the high-pitched voice. Gir, dressed in his green dog suit, sat on the ground of the alley they were in and had the Dib doll in his lap. As per usual, he was drinking a cup of chocolate bubblegum, slurping it loudly.

“Gir, help your master. Get the human off me!” Zim ordered.

Gir stood at attention and saluted, his teal eyes turning red briefly behind the mask of his suit. “Yes, sir!”

Gir jumped on Dib’s face and he landed on his ass, releasing Zim in the process. “Mini Mary wants to give you a big kiss!” He proceeded to press the dolls face to Dib’s lips.

“Agh! Gir, get off!” Dib flung the SIR unit off his face, who squealed in delight as he flew before landing in a garbage can nearby.

“Gir! Stop playing in human waste! We have work to do!”

Gir tumbled out of the garbage can and went to his master’s side. Dib sat up and glared at the two of them. “Why can’t you just admit that I figured out your plan! The doll is a spy and you’re gonna do something with it. So tell me!”

“Enough with this nonsense. You’re more annoying than usual today and I don’t like it. Come, Gir, let’s get back to the base.” Zim turned around and started marching down the alleyway. Instead of following, Gir skipped up to Dib and picked up the doll, extending it to him. Dib glared at the robot, who was smiling at him with his tongue hanging out.

“What’s he planning, Gir? Why did he make the doll?”

“Oh, Master didn’t make mini Mary. I found him!”

“Found it?” Dib asked, raising an eyebrow. “Where?”

“By the pink house. He was hiding in the bushes playing hid-n-go-seek, but I found him, and then I hid, and then he found me.”

“Pink house?” Dib thought back to the comments left on the website, about the pink house near the well and old apple orchard said to have been home to ghost hauntings. Dib didn’t really think about it this morning, but he remembered seeing the silhouette of the house in the distance at the bottom of the hill of the orchard. “What were you doing there?”

“I went through a hole.”

“Right…Wait,” Dib shook his head as he went over what Gir said. “You found him and then he _found you?_ ”

“Oh, yes! Mini Mary is very good at hiding _and_ seeking.” Gir squeezed the doll in his arms, twisting his hips as he swayed back and forth wagging his dog tail.

“He found you…” Dib whispered. Gir was known to spill nonsense about the most random things, so Dib honestly wasn’t sure why he was unsettled by this. However, something didn’t sit right with him. It couldn’t be coincidence that Gir had ended up at the well this morning with Dib. It also couldn’t be a coincidence that the doll looked _exactly_ like him, aside from the button eyes. He had given the doll back to Gir this morning and then headed off to school. If Zim wasn’t the one who put the doll in his backpack and locker like he originally thought, then that meant the doll had to have gotten there some other way.

Dib’s eyes widened and he gained a thoughtful look before looking back at Gir, still hugging the doll. “Can I have mini Mary back, Gir?”

Gir clutched the little doll protectively. “Awww, but I loves him! Mini Mary wants to stay with me!”

“Gir! I said now! Get over here before I dismantle you!” Zim shouted from the end of the alley.

“If you give me the doll, I promise I’ll let you play with him later.” Dib gave the robot a small smile, hoping it was enough to convince him.

Gir smiled and twirled on his right foot, squealing happily. “Yaaaaay! Okay!” He tossed the doll back into Dib’s lap and waved at it. “Bye, mini Mary! I’ll see ya later!” He continued to wave until Zim called him once more, then bounded down the alley and disappeared around the corner.

Dib looked over the doll in his lap. He wasn’t exactly sure why he was staring at it, but something about those button eyes drew him in. Eventually, Dib made his way to his feet, his eyes not leaving the doll, and smirked. “Let’s get home, mini me. We have a house to go investigate.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The art that was used is from Ollisuu's tumblr.  
> Original post here: https://ollisuu.tumblr.com/post/189258693201/they-say-love-can-break-the-proudest-of-spirits


	3. The House

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hey there! We're here with chapter 3 today, and soon I'll be uploading chapter 4. I was originally gonna upload those two as one chapter, but the more I wrote, the longer it got and I was impatient; this part can stand on its own perfectly fine, though. Not to mention that the fourth chapter is already halfway written.  
> I bet y'all have noticed the title change for this fic: "Dib Membrane: Glass Buttons." So happy with this title! It was bothering me that I couldn't come up with a title for the fic considering the original "Coraline" story is the name of the main character. I feel like I was able to capture the essence of both worlds in the title, which was hard to do. I might end up just calling it "Glass Buttons," but this is fine for the moment.  
> Anyway, thanks again for all the kudos, bookmarks, and comments! Glad to see that y'all are enjoying the story to want it to continue! Hope you enjoy the latest chapter and can't wait to hear y'alls thoughts!

Dib stepped out of the shower for the second time that day and quickly dried himself. He felt much better after being able to officially scrub all the mud and grime from his body after the morning’s events, but he had no time to lounge about. He threw on a somewhat clean outfit and hurried back to his room, stopping in the doorway.

The Dib doll was on his bed, sitting innocently against his pillows. Just like how he’d left it.

Dib narrowed his eyes and placed his hands on his hips, donning a thoughtful pout. The doll stared at him with its stitched smile and button eyes, slightly slumped forward. He couldn’t be sure if the doll would stay put after leaving it alone in his room while he showered, and forget letting the thing sit _in_ the bathroom with him, so he’d left a camera on to record it, just in case. He’d have to go over the footage later once he had the time after his evening expedition. He’d already sent an email to the Eyeballs explaining his predicament with the possible haunted house, the well, and especially the doll. He felt bad not having any actual evidence besides his claim that the doll could somehow teleport, but he’d promise he’d have more by tomorrow; and he would, he would be sure of it.

Cautiously, Dib walked inside the room, closed his door, and pulled up his rolly chair. “So, mini me…” he said slowly, taking a seat and leaning forward. “Why are you here?”

The doll stared at him.

“Why do you look like me?”

More staring.

“Can you talk, or are you just refusing to?”

The doll slumped forward onto its face, and Dib jumped, before scolding himself and regaining his posture. He tapped his finger on his forearm. “Who made you? Do I know them? Is this a trick by Gaz? I wouldn’t put it past her. Or Zim. It could still be you behind this, you sneaky bastard, Are you listening, Zim? Huh? Huh? Huh?!” He had closed in on the doll by this point and was now shaking it in his hands. It flopped back and forth before slumping forward in his palms.

Dib huffed and let the doll go, crossing his arms. “Are you a ghost? Gir said he found you by an old haunted house. Did you belong to a kid? Were you abandoned? No, that wouldn’t make sense…you look too new for that because you look like me…Jesus, why do you look like me?” Dib continued to ramble on to the doll for ten or so minutes, pacing the floor erratically, before finally shaking his head and mumbling about talking to himself, again.

He ran his good hand through his clean hair and sighed, flopping back into his chair. He stared at the doll again and couldn’t stop a chuckle from escaping his lips. “God, I’m talking to a doll,” he mumbled, rubbing his eyes.

When he opened them, the doll was gone off his bed.

Dib shot to his feet and spun around, eyes darting over his room. “Where did you go?” Dib went over to his closet and started sifting through the messy contents. When he didn’t find the doll, he looked under his bed and then finally in his desk. Nothing. He sighed, aggravated. “Mini me? Where are you?”

“Is there a reason why there’s an earthquake going on in your room?”

Dib yelped and turned towards the door. Gaz was leaning against the frame, a deep scowl etched into her face and tapping her Game Slave impatiently against her hips. “Gaz! Sorry, I didn’t mean to bother you.”

“Too late for that. What are you doing?”

He avoided her eyes, rubbing the back of his neck nervously. “Looking for something.”

“Can you stop with the noise, then? You nearly caused me to die, and you know what happens when I lose a life, Dib…” Her eyes were squinted, but one of them opened as she let the sentence trail off, the harsh glare emphasizing the severity of her unsaid threat.

Dib gulped. “Wouldn’t dare. You can go back to your game. I’ll be quiet.”

She nodded, closed her eyes, and left. Dib released the breath he had been holding and slumped into his chair.

“Dib!” Her voice startled him, and he fell out of the chair with a yelp. “Come get your stupid Lalaloopsy doll!”

“What?” Dib was hurrying down the stairs before he knew it, stopping beside his sister. He gaped at the doll, which was now slumped beside the backpack he had thrown against the door when he got home from school. Dib looked back up towards his room, back at the doll, back towards his room, then back at the doll. How could he have missed that? He was right there, and so was Gaz.

“Did you see it move?”

“Why do you have that stupid thing?” she grumbled, not bothering to look up from her game nor address his question.

He sighed. “I don’t know. Gir found it.”

“Seriously? Did _Zim_ make that for you?” she scoffed and chuckled darkly. “You two seriously need help if you’re giving each other things like _that._ ”

“He did _not_ give that to me!” Dib stomped his foot and clenched his fists. “It’s some sort of haunted doll, I think. It keeps teleporting around and following me, even when I leave it somewhere—”

"Whatever, I don’t care. Just don’t get me involved with your stupid paranormal junk, and I won’t tell dad,” she growled and glided over to the couch to resume her playing.

Dib glared at her for a moment, opening his mouth to say something, but wound up shutting it again. He folded his arms over his chest, tapping his fingers against his arms. “Would it kill you to at least have a little interest in my hobbies?”

“Yes, it honestly would.”

He sighed, his body slumping with defeat. This wasn’t surprising. Gaz and Dib have been like oil and water from the day she was conceived, which was impressive considering…No, Dib refused to think about that memory.

It took Dib a few years to realize that, when he was much younger, he annoyed the hell out of his sister; and in return, Gaz would beat him up constantly for it. There wasn’t an in-between for them. They were either sitting uncomfortably in each other’s presences or making the other’s lives miserable. When Dib got older, he became less…vocal about things, to say the least. In return, Gaz beat him up less often. He didn’t know if their relationship had exactly gotten better by this change, but it certainly was less painful, for Dib, at least. Still, Dib couldn’t deny the sliver of indignation he felt in his chest when she turned her back on him in disdain.

Dib looked over his shoulder at the doll next to his backpack. “Why did you come all the way down here?” he mused.

“You’re talking to yourself again…” Gaz grumbled.

Dib rolled his eyes but refused to address her. He picked the doll up along with his bag and rummaged through it. His binoculars were still in there from this morning, still caked with mud, ready for when he had told himself he would return to the house later that night. He raised an eyebrow at the doll. “Are you trying to tell me to hurry up?”

Gaz groaned loudly. “If you’re going to talk to your ghost doll, at least do it upstairs.”

"Fine.” Dib threw the doll and binoculars into his backpack and went back upstairs. He didn’t bother cleaning the mess but still tried to be quiet so that Gaz wouldn’t make good on her threat, whatever it could be. He had a long list of things to gather for this stakeout. If this house was haunted, then Dib wanted to be as prepared as possible.

Cameras, laptop, batteries, flashlights, headlight, heat sensors, radar, granola bars, water, notepad, pens, voice recorder; all of it was shoved into his backpack. Once he managed to zip the thing shut, he grabbed his phone and the doll from his bed and headed downstairs.

He paused before heading out the front door. “I’m going for a stakeout, Gaz, if you care.”

“I don’t.”

“Thought you wouldn’t, but I just thought I’d let you know.”

"Whatever.”

“If you need anything, just give me a call.”

“Uh huh.”

“I don’t know when Dad’s coming back, but—”

“He’s in the kitchen.”

“What?!” Dib jumped and nearly hit the wall, goosebumps rising on his skin. How did he not hear the front door? He gulped and tried to steady his breathing, eyeing the front door before making a beeline for it.

“Ah, son, nice to see you!” The professor called happily behind him.

Dib froze. “Hey…”

“How was your day today? Well, I imagine?”

Dib adjusted the straps on his backpack and stuffed the doll into his trench coat. “Fine.”

“Long day at the labs. We’re working on a new renewable energy source that will change the way we consume energy! You’ve heard of dark matter, yes? We plan on—”

“That’s great dad sounds awesome gotta go now.” Dib slammed the door to the house before the professor could say more and headed down the street. It wasn’t until he had gone several blocks that he realized he had been running. He slowed to a stop and panted, hands on his knees and coughing.

After a moment, Dib caught his breath and stood up. He scolded himself for that display. It had been a while since he and his dad, if he could even call him that, had been in the same room together. They hadn’t talked in, well, months now, aside from the attempted conversations that the professor started, and he was still oblivious. So oblivious…

“You can’t keep avoiding him forever…” he mumbled before setting off again. “He’ll eventually figure out what you’re doing and confront you. What then?” He sighed, walking for a while before a chilling thought made him pause. “What if he doesn’t figure it out?” He didn’t want to think about the answer to those questions.

The sun was set low in the sky, not close enough to sunset, but enough to notice the shift in colors. Rusty sunlight lurked over rooftops and hit Dib’s glasses at bad angles, causing a glare. He had to raise a hand over his face just to see. He guessed he had a couple hours of sunlight left before he would be plunged into darkness. That was barely enough time to trek to the house and set up his equipment. He hurried his pace.

Eventually, the scenery went from suburbs to muddy hills and Dib found himself hiking for higher ground for the second time that day. Once he reached the top, Dib pulled out his binoculars and scanned the landscape. It didn’t take him long to find the orchard this time, the cluster of dead wood nestled amongst the mud, and he used that as a focal point to find the house.

Somehow, even though it was clear and fairly warm outside, the ground resting below the hill of the orchard was foggy. Dib raised an eyebrow, an odd feeling settling in his guts. It had been a while since he had investigated anything paranormal, especially after dark. What if the house wasn’t there? What if Gir had lied? What if it was there and he was just missing it and wasting his time looking? What if it wasn’t even haunted?

“Shut up,” he murmured. “It’s there. Just look.”

Dib continued to scan the hills. The sun continued to sink lower beneath the horizon behind him, stretching his shadow down the hill before disappearing into the sea of fog below. The shadows of the orchard elongated, too, stretching out like long, nimble claws about to snatch up prey. Dib shuddered, physically jolting the focus of his binoculars. When he fixed them, the fog had cleared somewhat, and his eyes widened. Burrowed so deep below the hills that Dib thought it was sinking into its muddy foundation was an old house.

Dib;s breath caught in his throat and he let out a hallow laugh. “Can’t believe it…” His heart raced with elation as he hurried down the hillside, nearly taking another mudbath as he went. Somehow, he managed to stumble to the bottom of the hill and found himself at the foot of the staircase that led to the front door. Dib took in the scenery as he caught his breath.

The word Dib would use to describe the house was _old,_ and he meant it in every sense of the word. The house looked like it was built last century at the latest, based on the construction. Dib guessed this is what someone would call a Victorian House: a mansion made of wood, with pointed rooftops and elegant bay windows; at least, they might’ve been elegant back when it was first constructed.

The house was physically leaning to one side, and Dib wondered if the house was stable enough to handle some intruding in it after years of being untouched by a living soul. The wood was so discolored that Dib couldn’t make out and sort of color from the splintering wood; Gir called it a “pink house,” though Dib wasn’t sure how the SIR unit knew that. The porch had collapsed, probably from weather decay and lack of management, and a few windows were busted. There was the remainder of what looked to be a rusted stairwell that wrapped around the side of the house and led upwards, but it had broken off, the remnants of it scattered bellow it’s original structure points. When Dib walked around the perimeter of the house, he found a concrete stairwell leading down beneath the house, most likely a basement. When Dib walked back around to the front, the sun had sunk so far beneath the hills that the house was now washed beneath the disappearing light.

Dib tightened his grip on his backpack. The anonymous comments and Gir hadn’t lied to him: the house was here, but he hadn’t realized how old it actually was. Any hauntings that Dib had been to had been more…structurally stable to say the least. He hesitated to test the wooden staircase leading to the front door and he flinched when he heard the first step squeak under his boot. He chanced another step, then another, and another. The stairs still squeaked but didn’t do anything more. He let out a sigh of relief and continued climbing, before promptly getting his foot stuck when the last step collapsed under him.

He cursed and yanked his foot out, hissing as splintered wood threatened to puncture his skin. He hopped the last step and pushed open the broken half door of the house. He nearly fell down into the basement through a large, gaping hole when he stepped into the main hallway. He shrieked as he caught himself, gripping the structurally unsound door for dear life, literally. Once he had found his footing, he inched his way around the hole and breathed another sigh, before tripping on something.

This time he did fall, and he caught himself on his bad hand. He hissed, cursing under his breath, and cradled his hand. He rolled over after a few minutes and looked around for the culprit of his misfortune. His eyes landed on a rug that took up the length of the hallway and bulged in the middle, preventing it from laying all the way flat. He huffed, standing up and stomping on the little bulge to flatten it. Another part of the carpet popped up. Dib stomped that bulge, too. A third part of the carpet popped up. He stomped it out. Two more bulges popped up. Dib sighed, defeated, and walked away.

He set his backpack down next to a dusty coffee table in the living area and took out his notepad, writing down his misfortunes and other notes he took on the house. “Front steps unstable, use caution; large hole near front door, 20 ft drop, don’t break bones; hall carpet has mind of its own, refuses to flatten, tripping hazard; _watch floor_ _constantly,”_ he mumbled, writing a few exclamation points next to that particular note. He nodded, satisfied, and then grabbed his phone, voice recorder, and the doll from his coat as he went to explore the rest of the house.

It was still light outside but given the placement of the house and no electricity, it was a little hard to see. To be safe, Dib took out his headlight and placed it over his head so he had a light source when it got too dark; it also made writing a lot easier since he didn’t have to hold a flashlight while he wrote.

He spoke aloud as he wrote, both to disrupt the disquieting silence and for his voice notes. “Dib Membrane, notes on possible haunted house located northeast of Hi Skool, March 30, 5:42 p.m. House divided into three parts: basement, attic, house; will explore basement later, attic stairs broken, no other visible way up; lots of windows, some broken.”

He then inspected each room, carefully checking everything with a thorough eye. “House has two floors; kitchen (draws and cabinets busted), library (bookshelves empty and broken), dining room (collapsed table, no chairs), closet (rusty old water heater), living room (dusty coffee table), study on first floor (empty), back door here; no access to second floor, stairs busted (don’t trust stairs, anyway); bedrooms most likely on second floor, maybe bathroom?” He hoped he wouldn’t need to relieve himself while he was out.

Nearly every room he went into had him encountering some sort of bug or excretion, most likely from rats. His face burned with embarrassment every time he walked into a cobweb because he was either too busy writing, monologuing, or staring at the floor to avoid falling to his death. After a while, Dib started to cough and gag more often, the result of musty decaying wood and mold overwhelming his nose. He hoped there was no mold infestation in the house.

Some walls had less dusty patches on them, shaped in circles or squares. “House might’ve been well lived in, traces of wall decorations left behind, nothing left, though.” Dib frowned when he returned to the living room and saw a peculiar painting above the fireplace. “One painting of a sad blue boy dropping ice cream, living room.”

As he explored, he kept careful eye on the doll and would often ask if there were spirits present. Nothing answered him. “No other signs of life; house abandoned years (how many?); cracked walls, squeaky floorboards (don’t break!); no running electricity or water; supposedly haunted but no voices answer when called, maybe not right time (?); no other rooms to explore.”

Dib placed the doll and his notes on the coffee table, coughing slightly as the disturbed dust rose in the air, and pulled out the rest of his equipment. He was disappointed that he couldn’t go and explore the bedrooms, as those would’ve been prime places for a ghost to inhabit, but that still didn’t mean he couldn’t monitor the rest of the house. He placed cameras in every room and connected them wirelessly to his laptop so that they were synced. He made sure his voice recorder was still recording before leaving that next to his notepad. It was getting harder to see, so Dib turned on the headlight and reluctantly decided to set the heat sensors and radar up another night, if this place proved its worth.

Eventually satisfied with his work, Dib returned to the living room and grabbed the voice recorder. “Set up cameras and synced feed to laptop. Will set up other devices at later date. No sign of ghost activity, but it’s still early; will do perimeter walk every hour for changes; doll has yet to…” Dib turned to check on the doll that he left on the coffee table, but it was gone. Dib tried not to be surprised by this, as the doll had been doing this to him all day, but it was a bit unsettling, as well as exciting. A small smile formed on his lips. “Doll has moved; looking for it now; potential ghost activity or other haunting present with dolls teleporting; will check cameras later for time of disappearance.”

Dib looked around the room and found the doll on the floor, its little head poking out from behind an old blank portrait leaning against the wall. How odd that he didn’t notice that before. He kneeled down and grabbed the doll, but then paused when his eyes lifted. There was something etched in the wall behind the portrait. He moved the doll across the floor and shoved the portrait aside. Behind where it stood was a small, square door, barely matching the height of Dib’s knees if he were to stand next to it, that was taped over by peeling wallpaper. There was no door handle.

His amber eyes widened as he traced over the frame. “How peculiar…” He’d found plenty of interesting things on his haunts before: ghosts having tea parties or raves, bigfoot using the belt sander in his garage, even vampire bees raiding the nearest convenience store for cheap ice cream and candy. Logically, he knew that a little door shouldn’t mean anything. But the doll had moved; it had moved to this particular wall and made itself noticeable so that Dib would find it _and_ this door.

He looked down at the doll. “Where does it go?” he asked, though he wasn’t sure if he was just thinking out loud or legitimately asking the doll. He shook his head as his fingers traced over a little keyhole. “Taped over _and_ locked?” He frowned and raised a finger to his chin, thoughtful. “Now what would someone want to keep locked in a little door like this? Any chance you know where the key is?”

The doll stared at him.

Dib sat back on his heels and thought. It had given him a hint with the door, but maybe the doll was testing him now, seeing if he was worthy to discover what lied beyond it. He wondered if the key would still be in the house after all this time. What if it wasn’t? How would he access the door and its contents without it? He supposed he could scan the keyhole and make a key himself at home with his dad’s equipment. He shook his head at that idea. No, he didn’t want to ask his dad for anything regarding the paranormal; or anything in general.

Dib closed his eyes, his forehead wrinkling. The doll had moved for a reason. It wanted Dib to find the door, which meant it knew the door was there, somehow, and therefore it knew there was a way to open it. There would be a key, and it would be in the house. Where did people keep keys? Pockets, keychains, belts, hooks, drawers…

Dib was on his feet again. Soon, he was in the kitchen and searching the drawers and cabinets. Since most were broken or missing, he didn’t have many to search through. Drawer after he drawer he opened until he shrieked when he found the decaying body of a rat. He shuddered and slammed the drawer shut, moving towards the next drawer. However, when he shut the door, he heard something hard and heavy slide across the wood _._ Narrowing his eyes, he opened the drawer again. The rat’s body had moved with the force, and where it had been was a little black key, old looking just like the house, with a button for the head.

Dib smirked and chuckled to himself, resisting the urge to give himself a pat on the back. He hurried back to the living room and knelt next to the door. Taking the tip of the key, he slit the peeling and crusted wall paper open. Once the crease was fully exposed, he placed the key into the keyhole and turned it. It unlocked with a click. His breath caught and his body shook, a smile growing on his face. He placed his fingers into the crease near the keyhole and pulled, the door creaking and giving roughly against the aging wood. He eagerly peered into the doorway.

It was bricked.

Dib’s face fell. “What? That doesn’t make sense.” The doll had moved. It had _showed_ him the door. He found the key, the _right_ key. Why did he go through all that trouble for bricks? “Mini me, how could—” Dib turned and found the doll back on the table, next to his notepad, like he had never touched it.

Dib scowled and narrowed his eyes. “Hey, don’t pretend like you didn’t move, you stupid doll! I _saw_ you move! I caught it on camera, and when I look back over the footage later, I’ll find it! Stupid doll, stupid Dib. Am I stupid? Of course not, you’re not stupid. You’re just…talking to yourself again.” He sighed dejectedly and closed the door. It was going to be a long night.


	4. The First Visit

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Apologies for not updating sooner! School officially started for me last week, so I was wrapped up in getting into a schedule again. I had hoped to update this much sooner, but I just never got around to finishing it. But, as a consolation prize, here's a _really_ long chapter!  
> I'm not sure when the next chapter will be updated, but I'm more active on my tumblr if you want to see what I'm up to. If y'all are interested, I can see about opening up asks so you can ask me questions and answer them there ^^ Let me know.  
> Anyway, thank y'all sooooo much for all the comments I keep getting! I always smile when I see how much y'all are into the story and offer encouraging words ^^ I hope y'all enjoy this chapter, too!  
> My tumblr: https://dramancewrite.tumblr.com/

Dib had already walked around the house 3 times and it was nearly time for a fourth. He sighed and adjusted himself against the wall again, rubbing his eyes. Being alone in an old house with only four hours of sleep wasn’t doing wonders for him. He’d nearly fallen asleep several times; actually, he probably _did_ fall asleep, considering the couple times he was jolted awake by the alarm to walk the perimeter. He’d already been there five hours, and nothing had changed. No voices, no noises, not even the doll had moved. If this house really was haunted, it was doing a poor job at convincing him of that.

He groaned loudly and forced himself away from the wall, wincing as his spine ached. His laptop was in his lap and he had been flipping through the night-vision cameras for a while to try and spot any anomalies, as well as to busy himself from falling asleep. He’d also been keeping a stern eye on the doll, too, making sure to glare daggers at it for the earlier red herring.

Dib still wasn’t sure what the doll actually was. He concluded that it was supernatural, but that was about it. Because the thing looked exactly like him, he had ruled out that it had belonged to someone who died and was now communicating through it; unless the ghost was patient enough to bother with making the doll look like him; he found the idea improbable. He entertained the idea of someone possessing the doll, but ruled that out, too, for similar reasons. Was someone controlling it? It could teleport, so that seemed logical. But what or who was doing it? And, more importantly, why?

There was also the door. Despite being severely let down by its contents, Dib couldn’t help his mind wandering back to it. There was something odd about it. No one locks a door without a reason; Dib knew that all too well. He locked his closet to protect his findings, his drawers to protect his equipment, his computer to prevent hacking (specifically from Zim), and his window so that Zim couldn’t sneak in. Gaz started locking her door after Dib had gone in and cursed her with pig’s breath, and his dad always locked his lab.

What could someone want to hide behind that particular door? Why was it even there to begin with? It was too small to be a normal doorway and must’ve not stored anything big, if it could even store anything vaulable. Not to mention that the placement of the door didn’t make for much privacy. If someone wanted to hide something behind a door, they would put it in a closet or their room, not behind a tiny door in the middle of the living room. He also had a hard time believing that the door was used to travel to another part of the house. The door’s size was too impractical for convenient travel.

Dib yawned and rubbed his eyes again. This was definitely a boring haunt. Doubtful thoughts creeped into his mind as he flipped through the cameras again. What if this was a hoax? Is someone just testing his patience to wear him thin? Would they then start doing ghostly things and get him all excited, only to crush his confidence when they revealed it to be fake? Was this a waste of time? Did the doll really move or was he just…?

“No!” he shook his head violently at that thought. “Not crazy. _Not_ crazy! You’re. _Not._ Crazy,” he muttered repeatedly. He hunched over his computer again and continued flipping through the cameras. His nose was nearly touching the screen, like being physically closer to it would make the image clearer, and he squinted as he went over every fine detail in each room for changes. “You’re not crazy. You’re not crazy. You’re not crazy.”

The alarm for the next perimeter check went off, startling Dib out of his thoughts. He stopped the alarm and checked the time: 11 p.m. He yawned and stood up, stretching his cramped legs and letting out a satisfying groan when his bones popped. He hoped he’d be able to stay awake for the next few hours, or else he might miss something. If there was something here…

He shook his head again and headed out of the room. The house was, expectantly, much creepier at night, despite that he had already been around the house a few times already. Jagged shadows snaked up the walls and floors, making Dib’s skin crawl. Even with the headlight providing light to see, he still cautioned every step and looked over his shoulder. Dib found himself having to take in deep breathes to sooth his shaking hands, and he muttered comforting words to distract himself. He checked each room twice and headed back to the living area.

A soft squeak sounded.

Dib stopped, straining his ears. That was the first noise he had heard in hours. He didn’t step on any of the known squeaky floorboards and it was too soft for it to be the wind. The squeak sounded again, multiple times this time. He turned around and pressed himself against the wall, listening. More squeaking. It was coming from the kitchen.

Dib’s pulse spiked and he smiled uncontrollably. This was it. The moment he’d been waiting for. The house did have ghosts, and he was about to encounter them. He was shaking again, but this time from elation. Slowly, he crept towards he kitchen entrance. The squeaking continued, growing slightly louder as he approached. He took in a deep, shaky breath, careful not to be too loud, and peered into the kitchen.

A mouse was sitting on the counter near the sink.

Dib’s shoulders slumped, and he couldn’t help the groan that escaped his lips. A mouse. All that build up for a mouse. He shouldn’t have been surprised, or as easily let down, but he couldn’t help the embarrassment that coursed through him, along with disappointment. Tonight was going horribly. If nothing changed soon, then he would have nothing to report to the Eyeballs.

“Stupid mouse…” he grumbled, walking up to the thing and shooing it off the counter. It hopped off with an annoyed squeak and scurried out of the kitchen. Dib rubbed his eyes and groaned deeply; it didn’t take long until he gave a frustrated growl, close to a yell. Why did he decide to do this? The longer Dib stayed here, the more resentment he gathered towards himself for wasting his time with such a ridiculous claim. This house wasn’t haunted. Sure, it was creepy and dark and old and isolated from society, but _not_ haunted. It was just an old house, probably abandoned due to the upkeep on it becoming too demanding.

He grumbled to himself as he made his way back to the living room. He pondered the idea of just packing his things and heading back home before it got too late, but more squeaking interrupted his thoughts. He looked up to find the mouse stomping its little feet on his laptop, raking its claws over his keyboard.

“Hey!” Dib lunged for the mouse, crashing into the floor. The mouse gave an alarmed squeak and bolted off his laptop. Dib scrambled to his feet to chase it and saw that it had made its way onto the coffee table. It scratched up Dib’s notepad, knocked over his voice recorder, and chewed viciously on the dolls yarn hair.

“No! Get off that!” Dib shrieked and lunged for the mouse again. It squealed when Dib collided with the table, spilling all its contents onto the floor and kicking up a sea of dust. Dib coughed and gagged, scrambling away and clutching his eyes. He could feel the tears streaming down his face before he felt how much his eyes stung.

“You little bastard!” he snarled, wiping his eyes furiously. He chanced opening them and saw the little thing scrambling across the floor, before it disappeared behind the little door, which Dib had forgotten to lock after he closed it earlier. Dib smirked. It was cornered now, and that little thing was gonna get it for messing with his things. Dib shuffled his way towards the door and yanked it open, ready to pounce on the mouse, but it was gone. Confusion blossomed on his face, but before he could open his mouth, he peered into the doorway.

A long, colorful tube stretched out before him, a kaleidoscope of purples and blues shimmering along the walls. The cool colors flowed down the tunnel, swirling in the cracks and crevices like a waterfall, enticing him to follow. Inside, the mouse bounced along the ruffled ground, skipping further and further away until it reached the end of the tunnel, slipping out another little door on the opposite side. Dib gaped, eyes wide. “Woah,” he breathed.

Dib flinched as a breeze caught his face, ruffling his hair. He blinked. This couldn’t be real. This was bricked up a few hours before. How was this possible? The mouse’s squeaks tore him from his thoughts. He stared down the colorful tunnel, the colors reflecting off his glasses. Innocent curiosity gripped him. Hesitantly, he placed a hand in the tunnel and was surprised by how soft the walls were, like fabric. His breath caught in his throat and he let out an airy chuckle.

He was about to continue down the tunnel when he remembered where he was. He backed out of the tunnel skeptically. Was this real? Did he fall asleep again and was dreaming? He wouldn’t put it past himself. However, the doll had moved to this door…

Dib got up, walked back to the fallen coffee table, and picked up his voice recorder. He would’ve preferred a camera to take, but he had put them all up for surveillance and he didn’t want to risk the time taking one down lest the door was on a time limit for how long it was open. He would just have to settle for the living room camera showing he slipped through the door and the voice recorder to pick up his findings once he was through to…wherever lied on the opposite end of the tunnel.

He approached the little door again and crouched to his hands and knees. “Dib Membrane, haunted house. 11:23 p.m. The mysterious door has opened to reveal a colorful tunnel with an exit in sight on the opposite end. No camera to take with me but will record audio notes. Hopefully I won’t die or lose this thing. Going through the tunnel…” Dib sucked in a long, deep breath, exhaling slowly. “Now.”

Slowly, he crawled through the tunnel. The material gave easily under the pressure, making him wobble on his knees and one hand (the other was holding the voice recorder) as he crawled through. The tunnel was not huge, but Dib didn’t feel enclosed in the tube, either. He felt like he was crawling through a children’s flexible playground tube, especially with all the colors swirling around the wall like it was made of liquid. Come to think of it, what was this material made out of? How did this exist? Where was he going, to another part of the house? How come he didn’t see a possible room from the outside when he explored the perimeter earlier?

His thoughts scattered from his mind when he reached the end of the tunnel. He pushed open the small, identical door that he had reached and crawled through. Outside the door, the wood floor was buffed and smooth against his palms. His chest bubbled with excitement as he brought himself to his feet and took in his new surroundings.

There was a couch, a coffee table, a fireplace, a picture above the mantle and…Dib blinked a few times and looked closer at the room. That painting looked familiar, with the boy eating ice cream…Dib’s eyes widened, and his jaw dropped in disbelief. This was the exact same room he had just left!

Dib groaned loudly and pulled his hair roughly. “How is that even possible?! I walked through a doorway, well I guess I crawled in this case, but I came out the same place without looping. How could I have missed that!? I was going straight the whole time and this room is much nicer than the one I just left! Not to mention—!”

Dib froze.

The room _was_ nicer than the one he had just left. It was _too_ nice for a run-down, abandoned, century-old house. This new room had furniture, and _nice_ furniture, like it was designer made, and was well kept, too. There was no dust anywhere and the floors were kept so well that Dib could almost see his reflection in the shiny wood. Dib eyed the painting above the fireplace and had to do a double take. It was the same blue boy with the ice cream cone from the other room, but instead of being upset that his ice cream spilled, he was happily eating it.

Dib raised an eyebrow and took a step back towards the door. This was…surreal? Uncanny? Weird? A combination of all three words would best describe how he felt. “Where the hell am I?”

He eyed the little door to his left and considered crawling back through. He must’ve hit his head when he was trying to catch the mouse; his shoulder still hurt from hitting the table. Was he dreaming? No, cause he could still feel pain. Hallucinating? That one would be harder to prove…He started running complicated math problems in his head to see if he could trick himself into coming up with the wrong answer. The humming from another room was making it difficult to concentrate, but he managed. However, instead of getting a wrong answer, he was correct every time. He furrowed his eyebrows and ran a hand through his hair. What was going on, exactly? He wasn’t prepared for this. He should’ve planned better. What was wrong with him? Why was he so scatterbrained recently? He wasn’t normally like this, so why—

Dib froze. Someone was humming?

He raised his head from his hands and looked around. The double-door entrance leading out of the living room was propped open with light pouring through from another room. Now that his brain wasn’t running at a schmillion miles an hour, Dib could clearly hear the gentle humming. He didn’t recognize the tune, and it changed tempo and fluctuated so much that it felt like whoever was humming was just making it up as they went along. The oddest thing about it was that it sounded male and faintly familiar.

Cautiously, Dib stepped forward, out of the living room and into the hallway. That stupid carpet was there like before, but there was no random kink in it this time, and the gaping hole near the front door was gone. The front door was even in one piece and had a fresh coat of white paint. Dib felt the strong urge to explore this “new” house he somehow stumbled into, but the humming was coming from the kitchen, along with an amazing smell that Dib was entranced by.

Dib crept through the dining room (which now had a nice table, matching chairs, a six-candle chandelier, and other assorted dining room decorations) hoping that every groan of the floorboard and squeak of his boots was only deafening to him and not whoever was on the other side of the sliding door. He took in a shaky breath that he hoped wasn’t too loud and glanced down at the recorder. His hands were clammy and shaking so hard he nearly dropped it. He opened his mouth to say something into the device, but he hesitated. The humming was loud enough that he was positive the recorder would pick it up, and he didn’t want to risk tipping off the voice on the other side. What if it was a monster? A horrifying beast that fed on intruders like the stories from Hansel and Grettle? What if it was just a nice family preparing dinner and he had intruded on them? Would they call the police? He didn’t want to explain to his dad why he was being escorted home by the cops. Again.

He shook his head. _No more stalling,_ he thought. With a determined nod, he placed a hand on the door and slid it open.

He was nearly blinded by the light and he held in a hiss as he tried to adjust. This kitchen was a lot brighter than the other one; not just because of the lights, but also by design. A polished wood table and chairs were in the center, ceramic tile coated the floor, the cabinets painted a soft yellow, and there, standing at the stove and the source of the humming was—

“Dad?!” Dib exclaimed, amber eyes going wide behind their lenses. The man was tall, around 6 feet, and wearing a white lab coat. His jet-black hair, much like Dib’s own, donned an uncontrollable scythe-like cowlick, and even though the man’s back was facing him, Dib could see the rubber gloves snaking up his arms as they stirred the contents of a bowl. No wonder the humming was so familiar.

Any and all curiosity evaporated from Dib’s skin. He balled his fists, mindful of the recorder in his injured hand, and his eyebrows furrowed. Dib had sworn that he wouldn’t speak to his father, but the filter he had trained himself to keep shut opened in frustration and without hesitation. “What the hell are you doing here?! Did you follow me?!”

The man he called “dad” chuckled and turned around. “Oh, son, you’re just in time for dinner.” He smiled brightly over the tall collar of his lab coat.

The recorder clattered against the ceramic floor. Dib’s eyes went wide. His jaw dropped. That was his father’s voice, his looks, his clothes, his dialect, but instead of eyes or the goggles that Dib commonly saw his dad wearing, were big, bright, silver buttons

“You’re not my dad.” The words tumbled from Dib’s mouth, even though he didn’t feel his mouth moving to form them, nor his voice working to shape them. “My father doesn’t have…bu-bu-bu…” The word refused to spill from his mouth. The tip of his finger brushed his cheek, pointing to his eye in a pitiful attempt to charade his meaning.

“Bu-bu-bu buttons?” The man chuckled again, his cheeks wrinkling around the buttons, trying to show joy and failing because the button eyes did not wrinkle like normal eyes did when someone smiled. He set down the bowl he was stirring, the unnatural smile never leaving his face. “Do you like them?” he asked, tapping one of them with his finger. It made a little _click_. “I’m your _other_ father, silly. Now, go tell your other sister that dinner is ready,” he said, turning towards the oven and pulling open the door to reveal a large, roasted chicken.

Dib blinked. Other fathers and sisters? Button eyes and home-made dinners? Was he serious? Did his dad find him so delusional that he would believe any crazy paranormal thing that waltzed into his line of sight? The professor was mocking him. Truly _mocking_ him! An elaborate scheme that he would play out to draw Dib in like a moth to a flame, until his dad finally revealed that it was nothing more than shameful fairytales barely worthy of being read to a child before bedtime. Well, unlike a mere child, Dib was no fool, and he was not about to be treated like one for the sake of his dad’s bizarre version of a father-son “talk.”

He pushed himself from the spot he was frozen to and marched up to his dad. “Cut it out, dad.”

His “dad” looked up from the oven and stood up, the chicken in his hands. “Cut it out? Well, I will be cutting it, but I think we should let it cool a little first don’t you think?”

“What? No! Not the—Dad! Cut the joke! Did you seriously think a _simulation_ would make me talk to you?!”

“Simulation?” He set the chicken down on the counter. “What do you mean?”

Dib narrowed his eyes, his lips twisting in a small snarl. “Seriously? Now you’re treating me like I’m stupid?” Dib had no idea how his dad planned to give him a heart-to-heart talk if this was how he planned to treat him. “Do I seriously have to spell it out for you?”

“I’m afraid there is a bit of a misunderstanding, son. You think I’m your actual dad, but I already told you: I’m your _other_ father.”

Dib rolled his eyes, placing his hands on his hips. Despite not wanting to admit it to himself, his father was at least attempting to sound confused, but it only made Dib even angrier. “You seriously couldn’t have come up with a better paranormal name? You couldn’t even bother to do a _little_ research? Actually, that’s asking too much, considering you’re the _Great Professor Membrane._ I’m just your _poor insane son_.” Dib looked away, pouting, and refused to meet those button eyes.

The room was quiet for what felt like hours to Dib. Saying that phrase shouldn’t have felt as natural as it did, and it sickened him. Hearing that phrase was hard enough most days. In fact, it was said so often that Dib thought he should be used to it by now, but he wasn’t. He would never be used to that phrase, said by his _dad_ of all people. The person who was supposed to have his Dib’s back when everyone else was against him. Every time his dad uttered that phrase, it was like he had physically slapped Dib, and he, being too embarrassed to speak out against it, would stand there and take it. Dib couldn’t meet those fake eyes as he waited for the inevitable confirmation, tensing his body in preparation for the sting that always followed.

“Oh, son…that’s a horrible thing to say about yourself.”

Dib couldn’t stop the double take he did, and he was meeting the worried gaze of the…other father, as he put it. The man’s eyebrows were furrowed and, despite having no actual eyes and facial wrinkles, the man appeared _concerned._ “But you say that all the time about me. It’s normal for me to hear you say that.”

It was the man’s turn to do a double take. “I would _never_ say that about you, son! Don’t you ever think that I would.” His smile peeked out over the collar of his lab coat, and Dib couldn’t help the smile that tugged at the corners of his own mouth, a warm feeling spreading in his chest. The other father laughed, patting him on the shoulder. “There’s that smile. Now, we can definitely talk about this later, but I think we should have a nice family dinner together. Go fetch your other sister from your room. I believe she’s decorating.” He turned back to his chicken and started getting utensils.

The warm feeling spreading in Dib’s chest turned numb when the other father mentioned that Gaz was in his room. He nearly raced upstairs as soon as the words left the others mouth, about to scream for his sister to not touch his things, but he stopped himself. He wasn’t _home._ He wasn’t in his house needing to preserve evidence of Zim that he knew Gaz wouldn’t have hesitated to fuck with if he had pissed her off. He was in some bizarre other version of the broken, abandoned house he had just left, and he wasn’t told to fetch Gaz, but rather his _other sister_. This place was incredibly confusing.

Come to think of it, he still didn’t know what exactly _this place_ was. Was he dreaming? Possibly, considering he just talked to a version of his father that had listened to him and validated him. Even if he wished that could’ve been his father speaking those words, his dad had never said anything encouraging about him or his passions unless they aligned with “real science.” The only way his dad would support him is if he _was_ dreaming.

Now that he thought about it, why did this “other father” look so much like his real father anyway? And why did he have button eyes? That revelation was probably the creepiest thing about this whole situation. If this was a dream, why would he dream up and image of his father only to not dream him with real eyes? Was this some sort of symbol for something? Dib was never the best at English, despising literature and its stupid literary devices that made no sense. This whole situation made no sense, like Dib was somehow caught between fantasy and reality, and they blended so well together that he couldn’t distinguish which was which, only that he knew this was odd.

What if this was the work of a dream-eater monster that fed off pleasant dreams to keep him asleep while it slowly ate his body? He shuddered. If that was the case, should he wake up? _Could_ he even wake up? He wanted to tell himself that he should and run out of the house, but he remembered the way the other father had said he shouldn’t call himself crazy, and that delicious smelling dinner was getting harder to ignore…

It wasn’t long before he was walking out of the kitchen and heading up the (not broken) stairs of the house. It was very homey; furniture, carpets, wall portraits and paintings placed with careful consideration. Nothing in the house matched one another, the color schemes and furniture ranging in different shades, sizes, and designs, but for some reason it all flowed together very well that it made everything look warm and welcoming, which was a nice change of pace from the Membrane memorabilia and furniture that was placed in Dib’s house.

When he reached the top of the stairs, he heard someone singing, but not singing actual words, and this time he recognized the voice. He followed it down the short hallway and pushed open the slightly agape door to what the other father referred to as “Dib’s room.” Inside was a girl with purple hair standing on her tippy toes, wielding a thick paintbrush covered in blue paint across the wall.

“Gaz?” he blurted out.

The girl paused, lowering her paintbrush, and spun around. “Hi, Dibby!” she greeted, smiling brightly. Dib’s intentions of stepping into the room were halted when what he assumed to be the other sister turned around. There was no doubt that the being in the room _looked_ like his sister, at least from behind. Her purple hair and voice were distinctions enough. However, it was very clear to Dib that this was _not_ Gaz in any way, shape, or form.

First, Gaz would _never_ call him “Dibby.” When she wasn’t making his life miserable, she was ignoring him, and in the cases where she _had_ to address him, she would rather call him a demeaning nickname rather than his actual name, let alone Dibby. Frankly, he found himself cringing at the nickname. Second, his sister never smiled, even for things that made her happy, so he was very unnerved to see her smiling _genuinely,_ at _him_ of all people. And third, Gaz was always squinting, and it was very rare to see her eyes open, but when they were, Dib was positive that they were amber eyes like his and not shiny, purple buttons.

“Wanna see what I painted?” she asked, beaming at him. There was never a time when Dib thought of his sister as anything less than scary, it didn’t matter if she was beating him up or not. And he thought she couldn’t get any scarier than her nightmare form dwelling in his head (he shuddered just thinking about it). However, seeing Gaz smile at him, especially when she never smiled for anything, let alone him, was…unsettling, to say the least. If the other father validating him was not enough proof that this was a dream, then the other sister being happy to see him was.

Dib attempted to step backwards out the door, the whole situation making his guts clench and scream at him to _get out NOW._ But he was intrigued, hence why he wasn’t screaming and running back down the stairs towards the rainbow tunnel. “My sister doesn’t paint,” he said carefully, testing how safe the situation was. He recalled that Gaz liked to doodle from time to time when she wasn’t engrossed in her games, but he never really took her for an artist. Then again, he never imagined he’d find his father making homemade chicken, so perhaps Dib should stop comparing these people to his own family when they clearly weren’t.

The other sister giggled, her cheeks lifting and button eyes unmoving. “Maybe not your real sister, but I _love_ to paint!” She twirled on her heels and threw her arms into the air, gesturing to the room around them. While hesitant to take his eyes off her at first, Dib eventually let his eyes drift over the room. All across the walls were paintings of himself doing various activities, seeming to tell a story. Images of him following obvious footprints in the mud with a magnifying glass like some goofy detective, climbing up trees and looking up at the stars, and chasing Zim through a large clearing.

Dib blinked, his breath escaping him. An entire wall mural dedicated to him… “I…I don’t know what to—”

“Oh! It’s gets better! Look!” She reached out and grabbed his hand, yanking him towards her. He stumbled, but quickly caught himself so as not to crash into Gaz. The other Gaz? The other sister? He was thrust from his thoughts when the other sister presented a small device to him. It was a small remote control with what Dib thought to be a bright purple button in the middle, but upon touching it was actually a trackball.

Dib looked to the other sister cautiously, almost afraid to speak the obvious question that was dripping on the edge of his tongue. “Um…you want me to…” he gestured awkwardly to the device in his palms with his eyes.

Other Gaz giggled. “Of course I do! Go on, don’t be shy. Just don’t roll it too hard; it might pop out.” She smiled encouragingly, her button eyes glistening in the light of the room.

Dib looked down at the device, his gut whispering him to get out of there, but he ignored it. How bad could this end up being? She had gone through all this trouble to make him happy, the least he could do was entertain her. It looked harmless enough. Right? Dib took in a deep breath, placed two fingers on the trackball and rolled it.

As soon as the little ball moved, the mural came to life. Detective Dib started walking, carefully following the trail of footprints that seemed to go on forever as new ones appeared on a loop. Star-gazing Dib would climb the tree, look at the literal twinkling stars for a while and then jump out before deciding to climb it again. The Dib and Zim pair would run along the landscape until Dib would finally pin him, standing tall and proud with the Irken grumbling under his boot. The scenes repeated over and over again, the inky blue/purple backgrounds panning to emphasize movement, the shadows curling.

Dib stared with wide eyes. If the paintings themselves were amazing, then this was the icing on the cake. Dib didn’t even realize his jaw was open until he felt a gentle hand pushing it closed, startling him from his thoughts.

“You like it?”

He breathed out a “yeah,” not able to respond with anything else. He was getting lost in the murals, which a part of him realized how weird that sounded considering they were all paintings of him. Though, Dib had come to terms with the fact that he was _slightly_ egotistical (not as much as Zim, though), so he allowed himself this. Dib wasn’t sure how long he stared, but he eventually remembered why he came up here in the first place.

He shook his head and tore his eyes away from the moving paintings. “Oh, sorry, but, uh…he said it was time for dinner.” Dib wasn’t sure how the other sister referred to the other father, and calling him “dad” sounded…weird.

“Mmmmmmm, that sounds so good! I know I’m starving, and I bet you must be, too. Come on!” Other Gaz yanked Dib’s arm again, and he nearly dropped the controller in the process. He quickly stuffed it into his pocket as she dragged him downstairs and into the dining room, where a feast for an army was set up.

Dib’s eyes were wide again as he stared dumbfounded at the table. A whole roast turkey, corn on the cob, mashed potatoes with gravy, peas and onions, and oven-roasted carrots were all laid out. Dib’s stomach growled loudly, and he jumped back in surprise, dribbling saliva all over his face. His cheeks flushed red, shameful that he had just been caught staring with his moth open and drooling a waterfall. The two of them laughed and gestured for him to sit down, which he did, and the other two quickly followed.

The other father passed around the food to Dib, and he hesitated as plate after plate was handed to him, his cheeks flushing. He was embarrassed to admit, even to himself, that he couldn’t remember the last time he had eaten actual food (not including the random nights Gaz indulged him with pizza from Bloaty’s and the granola bars and coffee he substituted for meals), let alone remember when he, Gaz, and their dad sat and ate together. The other father smiled at him as Dib took a plate of sliced chicken and dumped several pieces onto his plate, followed by mashed potatoes, carrots, corn and gravy.

He looked down at his overflowing plate and found himself staring rather than eating, much to his stomach’s pleading protests. There was no way he wasn’t dreaming, right? He was just so hungry and deprived of his family that he was imagining dinner being served with them. The moment he started eating, he would wake up back in the grimy, old house attempting to chew his trench coat. He shouldn’t get his hopes up, but the smell…oh, it smelled too _good_ to resist. _Just one bite,_ he told himself.

He took a small bite of chicken with his fork. The flavor that hit his tongue sent waves of euphoria swirling through his gut so strong he felt dizzy. He took another bite, then another, then another until he was shoveling things into his mouth, and _still_ he thought he was eating too slow. He couldn’t get enough. His body has been depraved of a nice hot meal for so long that Dib had convinced himself it was fine, but once that food hit his tongue, it was all over.

He reached out to grab more chicken when he caught his father’s eyes. No, the _other_ father’s _button_ eyes. Dib’s face went red and he shrank back in his seat, awkwardly clearing his throat. “S-sorry,” he mumbled, “it’s…really good.”

The other father laughed at his reaction, but there was no heat behind it. “I’m so glad you enjoyed it! I had a feeling you’d love it. Though, I recommend you slow down a little, lest you don’t save room for dessert.”

“Dessert?” Dib asked.

The other father gestured to where the other sister was sitting. At her place, she had a two-tier cake, frosted over with blue icing. She smiled, giggling softly, and placed it in front of Dib, whose plate seemed to have disappeared, along with the rest of the food.

There was nothing on the cake when it was presented to him, but when Dib looked down at it, black fondant footprints indented into the frosting, like a creature was walking along the edge of the cake. Candles sprouted from in between the footprints and lit themselves with no need for a match. In the center, thin, black icing wrote the words “WELCOME HOME!” in cursive.

“Home?” Dib asked, his eyebrows furrowing as he looked up.

“We’ve been waiting for you, Dib,” the other father said, wrapping an arm around the other sister, who went to stand next to him. They both smiled warmly.

“For me.” Dib repeated, gesturing to himself. That couldn’t be right.

“Uh huh! Wasn’t the same here without you, Dibby,” the other sister said, bouncing lightly on her toes. Dib cringed inwardly.

For a moment, Dib didn’t know what to say. How does one respond to that situation? Joyfully? Skeptically? Apathetically? Why were they waiting for him? They clearly weren’t his family, but they looked like them. They acted strange, but they were a nice kind of strange. They encouraged him and smiled at him and did nice things for him. The kind of strange that he wasn’t used to. No one was ever _nice_ to Dib, not unless they wanted something from him in return. Was that what this was? A bargain for something? Dib couldn’t deny that he was intrigued by it. This place had a fantastical element to it, Dib wasn’t stupid. Paintings don’t come to life and people don’t have buttons for eyes and no one is _nice_ to _Dib_.

Still, Dib didn’t know anything about this place or who these people were, if they were actually people. They could be dangerous. Waiting for the right time for him to drop his guard so they could take advantage of him. His stomach gurgled at the thought. Perhaps eating all that food wasn’t the best idea…He forced himself to keep a straight face, though. If these people were trying to take advantage of him, he couldn’t let them think that he was onto them.

So, he did the safe thing: feign ignorance. “I didn’t know I had another father.”

“Of course, you do. Everyone does,” the other father responded with a wave of his hand, like it was common knowledge.

Dib raised an eyebrow. “Really?” He hoped he didn’t come off as sarcastic; the last thing he wanted to do was anger them.

“Yes. And as soon as you’re done eating, I thought we’d play a game,” the other father continued, his smile unwavering. His fingers tapped the table.

“A game?” Dib asked. He had never thought of his father as someone to play games. He was always so busy with “real science” that he never had time for it, ~~or his kids~~. Dib pushed that thought away. “What, like hide and seek?” He couldn’t help the sarcasm that dripped into his voice.

“Perfect!” the other father mused. “Hide and seek while we look for Bigfeets!”

“Bigfeets?” Dib questioned. “My dad doesn’t believe in Bigfeets. Or any paranormal stuff.”

“We _love_ the paranormal here!” the other sister waved her hands excitedly and giggled.

“Bigfeets, the Lochness Monster, the Mothman,” the other father added, getting up from his chair as he listed the paranormal creatures that Dib had been studying for years. “Aliens that live a few doors down and get into fights with you.” The other father grabbed Dib’s injured hand as he spoke that last statement.

Dib jerked his hand away, wincing. “How’d you know I—?” He paused. He supposed that shouldn’t be the weirdest thing that had occurred tonight, but that statement sounded…wrong. His dad had never believed him whenever Dib tried to tell him about Zim, and he hadn’t told anyone how he had injured his hand. How could he have known that? And why did he keep comparing his actual dad to this other father figure? Why did he look like his actual dad, but not act like him? Why did the other sister look so much like Gaz and not act like her?

Dib’s head swam with so many questions that he grew light-headed. He groaned lightly, bringing a hand to his head and rubbing his temples. This was all too much. He was too tired, too drained, too _confused_ to think straight.

He cautiously met the other father’s button eyes. “I…I’d love to find Bigfeets with you but…” He slowly got up from the chair, putting some distance between them. “I’d better get home to my other father.”

“But _I’m_ your other father,” the other father said back, leaning in over the chair on the emphasized word.

“I mean my _other_ other father. The dad who…raised me?” The word tasted sour on his tongue, but he refused to show that. He took a step back to leave the room but bumped into the other sister. He gasped as he jumped away, turning to face her. She giggled and gave a small wave, unfazed by their physical contact. “I-I think I need some sleep.” He rubbed his eyes roughly.

“Of course, son. It’s all made up.”

Dib felt the hand on his shoulder and flinched as he was lightly pulled forwards. He looked up and tried to resist being led back to what, he assumed, was dubbed as “his room.” “But I should go back through—”

“Come on, sleepy-head,” other Gaz interjected, placing her hand on his opposite shoulder and pushing him forward.

Dib wanted to resist, wanted to kick and punch his way out of their unthreatening grasps, but the thought of going to sleep in a warm bed was already placed in his mind. If he left now, he’d have to crawl through the tunnel, pack up his things, and then take a long trek home just to get there. Here, there was a bed all ready for him, and all he had to do was walk up a flight of stairs.

When they entered “Dib’s room” again, the paintings were still animated and just as breathtaking as they were the first time Dib saw them. He unconsciously smiled as he looked over them, feeling an immense swelling of pride in his chest whenever he saw painting Dib pin painting Zim under his boot. _Soon,_ he thought, _Soon I’ll get to do that to him._

Dib eyed the bed that was placed against the wall. It was just like his old one, with a blue comforter and pale grey bed sheets. He crawled onto the bed, kicking off his boots and flopping down with an _oomph,_ his body heavy with exhaustion; he was surprised that he hadn’t collapsed before this point.

“Son? Do you want to take off your jacket?” the other father’s voice pipped up.

Dib opened his heavy eyes, unaware when he had first closed them. “No thanks…’ll sleep in it…” he humbled.

“Oh. Well then, let me at least stop the mural from going all night.”

Right. The controller was in his pocket. Dib’s eyes sank closed again as he sloppily flailed his arm around, trying to wrestle the device out of his trench coat pocket to fish it out. Once he retrieved it, he extended it blindly towards the other father, who plucked it from his grasp. He heard the little trackball moving again before he heard the device being placed on his bedside table.

Dib’s consciousness was starting to drift off when he felt a pair of hands wrap around his injured hand again. “You’ll catch him one day, son.” His hand was patted gently.

Dib grunted in agreement. Even though his eyes were closed, he could tell when the lights of the room were switched off.

“See you soon.” The voices of the other father and sister sang as sleep took him from reality.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The image used in this chapter is from ollisuu's tumblr. You can find the image here: https://ollisuu.tumblr.com/post/189258693201/they-say-love-can-break-the-proudest-of-spirits


	5. The Daily Grind

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hello there! Apologies for taking so long to update. This chapter gave me major problems trying to construct it and then there was finding time to work on it. But I bet y'all don't wanna hear excuses lol. Thank you all so much for the support you've given me by giving kudos, commenting, and bookmarking! It makes me _so so so_ happy to see people likeing this story! More than y'all could ever know. Someone even made me some lovely fanart for this AU and I can't handle it! I'm so happy! She gave me permission to feature it in this chapter too!
> 
> If you'd like to follow me for better updates on my fics, you can follow my [tumblr](https://dramancewrite.tumblr.com/) You can also send me asks about my fics!
> 
> Anyway, I've rambled long enough.
> 
> Here is chapter 5!

Dib’s eyes pried themselves open against his will, which took a great deal of effort because he felt so comfortable. He groaned as light filtered through them as they opened more, sticky with discharge. He brought a heavy hand up to scrub away the crust that had gathered and attempted to go back to sleep, but the moment he moved, he felt unusually uncomfortable. Dib’s back ached, like he had a stick shoved up his spine, and his neck hurt in the position that he was in. He reached up to adjust his pillow, but he had trouble finding it. He fumbled around more, but instead of feeling his soft mattress, he was met with hard-wood floor.

Dib opened his eyes purposefully this time and fumbled around for his glasses to clear his blurry vision, which he found tangled in his arms and thankfully unbroken; he must’ve fallen asleep with them. Once they were positioned back on his head, he took in his surroundings. Light filtered through old, broken windows and illuminated the millions of dust particles that drifted through the room.

He was on the dusty floor of the old house that he was investigating.

He blinked, sitting up and taking in the room with a pondering look. His brain was running a lot slower than he would’ve liked, but he was positive he fell asleep in a bed last night. What was he doing here again?

His head was swimming, images of home-made dinners, buttons, and wall paintings flashing through his mind. What happened last night? He remembered he got up for patrol, but the details after were fuzzy, blurring in his mind like his vision without his glasses: almost forming a picture, but never clear enough to make out the details. His eyes glossed over the dusty room, a sense of déjà vu washing over him. He was here last night, but he also felt like he was somewhere else; like he stumbled into an alternate reality.

Was last night…a dream?

A dream of what?

He shook his head, jogging himself from his thoughts, and his eyes glazed over the little door. The little door…His eyes lingered there. He remembered that door was bricked up when he first opened it, but something had happened last night. He had opened the door again, and it had revealed a tunnel; and through that tunnel, there had been another room; and in that room had been…something warm and welcoming…

He sat there, thinking for a while, before he looked around for his laptop. He opened the camera app and pulled up the cameras to 11 p.m. He watched his past-self chase a mouse around the living room, only for it to disappear behind the little door. Dib frowned, remembering the little bastard scratching up his keyboard and nearly costing him some of his evidence. He also remembered he nearly caught the thing when it disappeared behind the supposedly bricked up door.

Only this time it actually led somewhere…

With the way the camera was positioned, there was no visible way to look at the contents behind the door. Though, Dib could tell by his body language that there was something there now compared to earlier. He watched with curious eyes as his past-self silently contemplated entering the passage, before finally grabbing something off the desk and speaking aloud.

“Dib Membrane, haunted house. 11:23 p.m. The mysterious door has opened to reveal a colorful tunnel with an exit in sight on the opposite end. No camera to take with me but will record audio notes. Hopefully I won’t die or lose this thing. Going through the tunnel…” His past-self paused, “Now.”

That’s right, he took the audio recorder to preserve possible evidence about what lied on the other end of the tunnel. He patted the pockets of his trench coat, but the device was gone. Did he leave it there by accident? As the Dib on the camera footage disappeared through the small doorway, present Dib got up and walked over to the door. He opened it up and was met with bricks instead of a passageway.

His heart sank. How was that even possible? His past-self walked through the door last night and his audio recorder was nowhere around. Dib sat back on his heels and peered over at the fallen-over coffee table. His notebook was still a shredded mess and the doll was still there from last night, but no audio recorder.

Dib huffed and stood up, rubbing the back of his stiff neck and stretching his sore back, then popped his knuckles. He flinched, realizing too late that his hand was still injured. He shut his eyes, preparing for the whiplash of pain, but it never came. Confused, he peeked down at his wrist and found it out of the cast and completely _pain free._ He flexed the previously injured hand. He could move it with full range and there was no reminiscent pain. Dib’s eyes widened. “How was that possible? I broke it!”

Memories of the previous night flooded back and hit him so hard that he physically stumbled backward against the wall. His dad and Gaz, no…the _other father_ and _other sister_ had been here. They’d welcomed him with open arms, both completely different from his actual family. Having dinner with the two of them, an actual sit-down dinner with the two of them, was both so foreign to him yet so natural. The full-course meal that was so good that he nearly went for seconds was so real to him that he realized he hadn’t woken up hungry for the first time in weeks, perhaps even months. Not only that, but the other father had taken quite an interest in his injured hand, and now he woke up with it completely healed?

He clenched and unclenched his newly healed fist. “It…couldn’t have been a dream.”

However, the door was still bricked, and even though he felt like he had fallen asleep in a warm, cushy bed, he had still woken up stiff and disjointed. He rubbed his neck again as he thought of one key problem for this whole situation: How did he get back here?

He trotted over to his computer and pulled up the camera app once again, skipping ahead in the night to the part where he had returned. He fast-forwarded so fast that he missed when he suddenly showed up on the floor. Dib rewound a bit and then pressed play. He watched the empty room intently, waiting for a sign of how he got there, but the camera screen glitched. When it cleared, there he was, sleeping on the floor. He knit his eyebrows in confusion and re-winded once more, but every time it got to the part where he would show up, the camera image would glitch and he’d suddenly be there. It was like the film was altered; like a part of the footage was removed without the time stamp being changed.

Dib sat back, confused. Why was the footage scrambled, and more importantly how? Dib re-watched the same clip over again, as if re-watching it would make an answer somehow appear. He combed through the other cameras, seeing if the glitching was present in the others, but it wasn’t.

He shook his head and rubbed his eyes under his glasses. “What the hell is going on?” He peered down at the time. “Holy shit! It’s 8:11?! I’m gonna be late!” Dib threw his laptop across the floor and scrambled to his feet. His sudden frantic movements caused dust to fly into the air and he sneezed a few times trying to regain himself. He yanked his backpack off the ground and headed for the door. This time, he made sure to watch out for the stupid rug and gaping hole near the front door as he exited the house.

“I’ll leave my equipment here and come back for it later,” he promised himself as he scrambled down the rickety stairs and began trudging up the hill away from the house.

The sun blinded him once he reached the top and he swayed back and forth on his feet as he made his way towards school. Though, he wasn’t sure if that was from the sun blinding him or the adrenaline rush. As he approached the looming building, he subconsciously remembered that he had slept on the dusty floor of an abandoned house and probably didn’t even have the right supplies to make it through the day. However, he also subconsciously decided that he didn’t care.

* * *

Dib burst in through the door of the classroom with so much force he nearly face-planted on the floor. He leaned his knees, panting hard, and it took him a moment to notice how quiet the classroom was. He slowly looked up, afraid of the scornful look that was always on Miss Bitters’s face. She loomed over him, her back curled over her body in such a way that should’ve diagnosed her with scoliosis. Dib swore the temperature of the room dropped 10 degrees once they made eye contact. Her eyes were narrowed even more than usual, and Dib gulped.

“S-sorry, Miss Bitters,” he said in between pants. “Lost track of time.”

She bared her teeth. “That’s something you seem to be good at, Dib.”

He raised an eyebrow. “Losing track of time?”

“No, coming in late. Go sit in the corner with the dunce cap.” She pointed a crooked finger over to the far end of the classroom where a crumpled triangle-cap was sitting on top of a garbage can.

Dib deflated. “What? Miss Bitters I was barely a few minutes late!”

“Keep up the banter and I’ll make you dance like a circus pig.”

“…Circuses don’t use pigs.”

“They’re about to if you don’t sit down,” she hissed through clenched teeth.

Begrudgingly, Dib made his way to the back of the room and did his best to ignore the snickers that he swore were louder than he knew they were. He threw his backpack on the floor, placed the dunce cap on his head, and sat down in the garbage can that he swore the janitors never cleaned. As Miss Bitters continued with her lecture about how rats will be the only creatures to survive the apocalypse, Dib’s mind wandered around the classroom. Thankfully, most of the students decided to turn their attention (or at least pretend to turn their attention) back to the lecture, with a few exceptions being the kids who normally bullied Dib in the hallways; they continued to snicker and inconspicuously flick spit wads in Dib’s direction (or at least they thought it was inconspicuous). However, as Dib’s tired and bored gaze traveled around the classroom, he noticed there was something missing: Zim.

Dib perked up at that realization and scanned the room again for the green idiot, but he wasn’t present. Dib held his tongue before he burst out asking where Zim was but knew better than to aggravate Miss Bitters more. He was already the class clown sitting in the garbage and wearing the dunce cap; he didn’t need to add “dancing circus pig” to the list of humiliation. He sat back in the garbage can, ignoring how it squished and seeped into his clothes. He should’ve known that Zim was planning something. Hell, he had made it pretty clear based on their interactions yesterday. However, he hated to admit to himself that Zim had slipped his mind ever since he got to the house yesterday.

He silently scolded himself for letting thoughts of the overgrown space-lizard go by the wayside. Who knew what Zim could be planning? He had kept bragging about some big plan every time they interacted with each other, and Dib ignored it. How could he be so stupid?! Zim could have the perfect plan to take over the world and Dib was busy checking out weird haunted houses. Granted, he knew he was gonna go back to the house later, not just for his equipment but also because he was curious about the door still. However, his duty first and foremost was to the Earth and stopping Zim.

Classes flew by quickly as Dib concocted theories of Zim’s possible plans of world domination. Mind control was something that seemed up Zim’s alley, and he had the technology for it, too. He also wasn’t above poisoning food or stealing organs—Dib shuddered at that memory. There were endless possibilities when it came to the space-bug.

Eventually, lunch rolled around and Dib spent the better part of the period stalking the school grounds to see if Zim was just hiding. He even spent part of his time exploring the vents—not only because it was a great method for spying, but Zim had picked up the habit of hiding in them. However, no matter where he looked, Zim was nowhere to be found.

Now with half the period over, Dib finally walked into the cafeteria, his mind still muddled with thoughts. He took a table in the far corner of the room, not bothering to go and grab anything to eat. The food was still nightmares from hell, and he didn’t have a granola bar since he didn’t have time to go back home before school. However, this time was the rare occasion that Dib actually wasn’t hungry. The food from last night was very filling…

It wasn’t long before he heard the subtle click-clacking of fingers on a game device. He didn’t need to turn to know that Gaz had taken a seat beside him. “Thought you’d be out looking for Zim.”

“Nice to see you, too, Gaz,” Dib grumbled, turning to face her. His sister wasn’t even looking at him, but he wasn’t surprised by that notion. “He’s not here today. I already looked.”

“Surprised you gave up that easily. After all, you never do anything else with your life.”

“Hey! My life does _not_ revolve around him!” Dib exclaimed, smacking his palm on the table.

“Really?” She smirked. “The 13.5 boxes in your closet would argue otherwise.”

“I don’t have…wait, how did you even—? Gaz, were you in my room?!”

Gaz only chortled in response, which made Dib fume even more. He wanted to scold her for breaking into his room _again_ but trying to tell Gaz to not do something would, inevitably, make her want to do it even more.

A thick, awkward silence passed between them, but neither of them were eager to fill it with any meaningful conversation. Dib wasn’t sure how much time had passed before Gaz spoke again, “Where’d you go last night if you didn’t go spying on Zim?”

Dib eyed her sideways and opened his mouth to speak but stopped. “Do you even care?”

“No, but I know you’ll tell me anyway.”

Dib glared at her and tried not to let her expressionless face bother him as she continued to tap away on her Gameslave.

Dib huffed, refusing to give her the satisfaction of answering her question. However, he found it hard trying to hold back talking about the mysterious house. While he could remember most of what happened, the memories surrounding the night felt…fuzzy. He could remember good chunks of what happened, even down to the conversations that were exchanged, but they all seemed so distant at the same time. Like he had filmed the entire memory with a shaky camera.

He shook his head and looked at his sister. She was scowling in his general direction, which was never a good sign. “Well?” she prodded.

Dib flinched. He knew better than to ignore Gaz, as that was an invite for him to get clocked in the face, but he also knew that going on about a topic she didn’t care about would aggravate her, which would also get him clocked in the face. He sighed. A classic case of “pick your poison.”

He looked up and opened his mouth to answer, but he hesitated again. When he was in the other realm (Dib had decided to call it that to save himself the confusion of referring to the house in two different ways) the other sister had treated him much differently. She was bubbly and talkative and sweet, all adjectives that were the complete _opposite_ of how Gaz was. Even now, Gaz was probably just tolerating his presence and humoring him for the sake of it. His mind wandered back to his first interaction with the other sister, how she had made that animated wall mural and had called him…

“What do you think of the name “Dibby?””

Gaz stopped tapping her fingers. Dib gulped. Did he enact Gaz’s wrath already?

“Why the fuck would I call you that, idiot?”

Dib let out the breath he was holding and cleared his throat. “Nothing. Was just asking what you thought of it.” While he was relieved that Gaz had decided not to murder him with her Gameslave, he also wasn’t surprised by the answer she had given. After all, _he_ was skeptical when the other sister had called him that.

Dib let out another quiet, relieving sigh when she went back to tapping on her device. He thought about answering her question once more, but then he recalled how odd it was seeing the other father in the kitchen cooking dinner. He knew it wasn’t his actual father, but he couldn’t unsee the image of his dad cooking dinner without the aid of a robot. Or the image of him doing anything that involved caring for his kids. He was always busy with science stuff.

“Do you think dad would ever cook for us?”

She stopped playing her game again. “That desperate for father-son time?”

Dib couldn’t help the scowl that grew on his face. “No! I don’t care about that. I was just wondering…if you imagine him doing it.” He glanced away and fiddled with the cuffs of his jacket.

The finger tapping stopped once more, but this time it was accompanied by Gaz closing the device and setting it down on the table. “Ok, what kind of game are you playing, Stupid? What’s with the weird questions?”

Dib cringed and dared to meet her gaze. Her eyes were open, and she was glaring daggers. Never a good sign.

“Nothing, jeez! Sorry to have bothered you about it…”

“You better be,” she grunted, “You’ve always been weird, but this is odd even for you.”

Dib pouted at that accusation. “I’m _not_ weird.”

“Yeah,” Gaz scoffed and picked up her Gameslave again. “Keep telling yourself that.”

Dib wanted to make an angry retort, tell her how wrong she was or how ignorant she was being, but the words wouldn’t come to him. He knew he was being weird about the situation, but he didn’t want to admit that aloud, especially to Gaz of all people. He didn’t like to think about it, but Gaz wouldn’t be able to understand his scrambled thoughts.

When Dib decided to check out the house, he expected creepy whispers, moving furniture, and random jump scares. He wasn’t expecting to crawl through a rainbow tunnel and end up in parallel realm with lookalikes of his family; lookalikes that acted nothing like his real family and had button eyes. Saying all that aloud would’ve earned him more than Gaz calling him weird.

~~She would’ve called him crazy.~~

Dib shook his head.

Truthfully, Gaz wasn’t far from the truth when she called him weird. The obvious accusation was his interest in Zim—though, he bet Gaz would’ve used the word obsession—but that wasn’t the only thing he was being weird about. He had been antsy the past few months. He busied himself more, afraid to be idle for too long, and refused to stay in the house for longer than he needed to, ~~afraid that he’d run into his dad.~~

A sharp pain flared in his wrists and he hissed. He looked down to find that he had dug his fingernails into his skin while he was playing with his jacket cuffs. He wiped away the blood with shaky hands. His leg was bouncing. He forehead was beaded with sweat. He didn’t need to think about that. Not now.

He wouldn’t say anything about his whereabouts last night to Gaz, or anyone for that matter; not until he got more evidence. He’d let the Swollen Eyeballs know that the house was a place of interest, but that he still needed more time to gather and go through any data he collected. As long as he provided updates, he would be fine. He would approach this cautiously and professionally. He would get to the bottom of the mysterious house.

But first, he had to find out what Zim was up to.

* * *

The rest of the day had Dib in constant anxiety. He couldn’t concentrate on the lessons and instead spent the entire time going through scenario after scenario of what Zim might do once Dib caught up to him. Dib knew he had an over-active imagination (for better or worse) and while it helped him come up with elaborate ways to defeat the alien, he often had a hard time figuring out the plan without Zim giving him a hint. He half-hoped the green bug would make his appearance known at some point, but as the hours till the end of school ticked by, Dib found that harder and harder to believe.

Soon, the final school bell rang and Dib all but ran out of the school to head home. He would probably hear it from Gaz later about ditching her, but thoughts like those were shoved to the back of his mind. Right now, he had to find Zim and get the menace to spill his evil plot before he destroyed the Earth (and Dib’s mind).

Dib burst into his room and began gathering supplies. However, it was quickly apparent that Dib brought most of his good equipment to the house the night before; the same equipment that he also left at said house because he overslept and was late to school. He cursed under his breath and stomped downstairs to the garage to see if he could find any spare equipment, grabbing big backpack in the process. He knew he was going to have to return to the house at some point for his equipment, as well as to reinvestigate the little door, but he didn’t want to go back now and risk precious time he could be using to chase after Zim. He was just going to make do with whatever he could find in his garage.

Once in the garage, he hunted for anything of use he could stuff in his backpack. He had one spare camera, but it was old and had a cracked lens, so he tossed it in the garbage. He stupidly left his laptop at the house as well, so anything of use in regard to hacking Zim’s equipment or checking on the cameras he snuck into Zim’s base were off the table, too. He cursed again and kicked a spare oxygen tank that his dad had lying around. It clanged against the floor and rolled off to the side, knocking more things over in the process.

Dib flinched as a few more things crashed to the ground and peered up at the damage once the noises stopped. Something big and purple was now visible: Tak’s ship. Dib mentally facepalmed that he forgot about the old ship. He had repaired the thing when Zim’s Florpus incident nearly destroyed the Earth, but it had stopped working shortly after Gaz crash-landed it. After that, Dib hadn’t gotten the chance to repair it.

“Surprised my dad hasn’t gotten rid of you,” Dib mumbled.

“And I-I-I’m surprised tha-a-at you even still care,” the ship chastised, its voicebox still damaged and glitching like a broken record,

Dib leapt back at the noise, crashing into a nearby worktable and spilling more junk to the floor.

“Not s-s-surprised you’re sti-ill stu-stupid.”

Dib scowled back at the ship. “Shut up. Like you care, either.”

“N-no, never-er.”

Dib rolled his eyes and grabbed his backpack. “Whatever. You’ve been in here for years, so how would you know anything about me?”

He moved to another section of the garage and fumbled through more junk. He pulled out the old Membracelet and nearly tossed it back into the garbage with another yelp. Memories of Zim using the bracelet to bind him and render him useless were not pleasant…though, perhaps he could give Zim a taste of his own medicine if the bracelet still worked. However, he didn’t feel like testing the thing out in case it did and he ended up trapped once again, especially in front of the ship. He slipped the Membracelet into his backpack; he’d just have to settle for a trial by fire.

“Still chasing Z-Z-Zim?”

“Yeah? What of it?” Dib mused, half-listening as he continued to rummage around.

“You b-better not ask for m-m-my help again!”

“Believe me, wasn’t planning on it,” Dib mumbled, rolling his eyes.

He pulled out one of his father’s experimental laser guns and twisted the weapon around in his hands. He had forgotten the professor had dabbled in weaponry for a time. His father was the person who preferred the more peaceful approach, though he was never above preparing for the worst should things happen to get out of hand (Dib was still surprised the metal prosthetic arms could shoot plasma blasts). It was rare when Dib came across an obvious weapon.

He gave it a test shot. He should’ve aimed at something other than the knocked over oxygen tank.

The tank hissed and spun around violently, and Dib covered his ears and head as he dove out of the way. More crashing noises echoed throughout the garage as Dib cowered. The hissing finally stopped when he heard the ship scream.

“Y-y-you wre-e-etched little hu-human!”

Dib peeked over his hiding spot. The oxygen tank had somehow taken flight during it’s little hissing fit and had crashed through the ship’s windshield. While it didn’t break all the way through, it left a decent sized impact among the other fractures.

“Sorry…” Dib cringed.

“Y-you’re going t-t-to p-p-pay for thi-is-is!” The ship somehow, despite years of inactivity and damaged hardware, dragged one of its metal limbs across the floor.

Dib flinched as a rush of adrenaline coursed through his body. He clambered over his hiding spot and dashed out the open door as he heard more metal limbs creaking as they moved for the first time in years, moving to grab or crush him. Once he was out, he punched the garage door button and didn’t breathe a sigh of relief until the scratching and frustrated screams died off behind the door.

He took a few steps back on shaky legs and decided that now was a good time to head out to Zim’s house.

The path there was so familiar that if Dib that he could walk it even if he was blind. Soon, he was in front of the peculiar green house and making his way through the gnome field, which sounded cringier in his head than he liked to admit. Soon, he was through and mostly unscathed, and he knocked on the front door.

While most would think it incredibly stupid to simply knock on your nemesis’s front door, it often worked out in Dib’s benefit more often than not. Dib wasn’t surprised when the door opened to reveal Gir standing behind it.

“Hiiiiiii!” the SIR unit greeted, his tongue sticking out of his mouth.

Dib forced a smile. “Hey. Gir. Is Zim home?”

“Uh huuuuuuuuh! He’s down in the basement!”

“Oh ok.” Dib was pleased he didn’t have to prompt that information from Gir. “Can I come in?”

Gir’s eyes went red. “Intruder! No one is allowed in the base unless Master allows it!” Various weapons emerged from Gir’s body and aimed themselves at Dib.

Dib’s smile wavered and he resisted the urge to jump 3 feet backwards. He cleared his throat. “Uh, can I _please_ come in, Gir?”

The weapons adjusted closer to Dib. “None shall pass! Elimination of target in 5 seconds! 4 seconds! 3! 2!”

“Wai wai wait! Gir, how bout a trade?! A trade for something you want?”

The weapons retracted back into Gir’s body so quickly Dib nearly missed it. “EEEEEE! I’m gonna gets something!”

“Y-yeah. Of course,” Dib took in a shaky breath, “what do you—”

“I wants Mini Mary!”

Dib deflated. Of course, Gir would want the doll. He’d been the one to find the thing and Dib had promised to let Gir play with it from time to time. However, he knew he had left the doll at the house, and he wasn’t about to go running back there for the stupid thing. He should’ve just gone to the house when he considered it earlier!

He gulped and looked back at Gir’s eager cyan eyes. “Uh…wouldn’t you like a chocolate bar, Gir?”

The smile melted from the robot’s face. “You don’t have Mini Mary?”

“Uhh…” Dib knew better than to deny the robot what he’d asked for, especially since Dib had offered that he could choose what he wanted in return.

“I wants Mini Mary!” Gir screeched, his eyes going red again.

Dib sweat nervously and slung his backpack over his shoulder. “Hang on, Gir. I-I have something in here for you! Let me just—” Dib opened the backpack as he tried to make up some bizarre excuse as to where the doll could be, but when he undid the zipper all words fell on his tongue. Sitting in his backpack, underneath the supplies he hastily grabbed from the garage, was the doll.

“MINI MARY!” Gir screamed in Dib’s ear. Dib shrieked and shoved the backpack away from himself in favor of covering his assaulted ears. Gir took the opportunity to dig through Dib’s bag and brought out the doll, holding it triumphantly above his head and squealing random nonsense. He ran inside once he squealed long enough and left Dib sitting bewildered on the porch.

Once the ringing in Dib’s ears stopped, he gathered himself and his backpack and peered inside the house. Gir was sitting on the couch munching on syrupy popcorn and nachos while the doll sat slumped over next to him. “Mini Mary and I are gonna watch the Monkey Show!” Gir said, smiling.

“Uh huh…” Dib agreed slowly, unsure of how else to respond, “I’m gonna…” he pointed to the kitchen, “go…there.”

Gir waved him off and Dib scurried through the living room to avoid provoking the little robot again. Once in the kitchen, Dib made his way to the vent, unscrewed the bolts, and proceeded to climb inside. He wouldn’t mind taking the elevator down to the lab and confronting Zim directly, but he found the vents to be a better method of spying and the Computer never seemed to groan at him like it did whenever he asked to use the elevator.

As Dib shimmied through the vents, the sound of Zim’s cackling echoed through the base. Dib had an idea where the little gremlin was hiding, but the sound of his voice made it easier to find him. Soon Dib approached a dead end in the vents and found Zim standing in the middle of his lab in front of a large computer screen. Two tall figures—one red, the other purple, and both Irkens—sat on a couch and peered down at Zim through the screen. Dib recognized the two as Zim’s Tallest—he had confronted them a few years ago when Zim was off planet—but they looked a little odd this time. They moved very stiffly and erratically, like their limbs were being pulled in different directions. Dib also thought he saw stiches in various parts of their bodies, and that their eyes were not evenly lined up…

Dib shook his head. That wasn’t what he should be focusing on right now.

If Zim was contacting his Tallest, that only meant he had something big planned for Earth!

“Zim is please to inform you, My Tallest, about my next _diabolical plan_ to destroy this _filthy_ ball of dirt!” Zim laughed. Dib tensed. He was lucky he had gotten here now! If he had been here any later, he would’ve missed Zim bragging.

“My next greatest plan involves turning all the filthy pig-smellies of this planet into zombies to use as personal slaves! Because humans are so stupid, they won’t suspect a thing and will be able to take down all the other stupid pig-smellies while I take over the Earth!”

The two taller Irkens moved weirdly again, their arms flailing. “And how do you plan on executing this plan, Zim?” the purple one asked. Dib could hear the red one whispering something that sounded like muffled snickering. Dib cocked an eyebrow at the odd behavior.

Zim didn’t seem to notice. “Oh, simple! With this device here!” Zim held up a small silver remote with a few pink buttons on it and an antenna sticking out the top. “The earthenoids brains run on certain wavelengths, and this device will be able to tune into that frequency and rot their brain meats! Then they will be my pathetic slaves!” He laughed maniacally.

Dib covered his mouth in horror. Zombies? Zim was insane! No one could control the dead or undead slaves or whatever the hell Zim wanted to call them (he knew, he raised the dead once; wasn’t pretty). Was Zim stupid? Dib had to silently scold himself for that rhetorical question. Of course, Zim was stupid! Only an idiot would think this was a good idea!

Apparently Zim’s Tallest thought so, too, because Dib could hear their laughter and snickers more prominently now, and their limbs flailed so frantically they looked like they were having seizures. “That sounds great, Zim,” the red one snorted

“Thank you, My Tallest!” Zim bowed and turned away from the screen. “Zim knew you would be pleased with my wonderful work.” When Zim’s back was turned, the red one lifted his fist and punched the purple one in the face. Dib had to stifle a strangled yelp when the Irken’s head popped off. Dib was about to go on a long thought process of how Irkens could detach their heads, but then the actual purple Tallest appeared from behind the couch and attempted to fix the broken toy he had been using to mess with Zim.

The Tallest were using…puppets to talk to Zim?

“Mini Mary! Where are you!?” Gir’s voice rang throughout the lab, pulling Dib from his thoughts.

Zim paused mid rant and turned towards the door as Gir burst in, literally bouncing off the walls. “Gir!” Zim called. After the robot screamed random nonsense and broke a few things, Gir ended up at Zim’s feet, most likely smiling up at Zim and the other scowling in return, but Dib couldn’t see that due to the angle of the vent.

“What are you doing here? You’re supposed to be guarding the house!”

“I’m looking for mini Mary!”

“Eh? The stupid Dib’s plaything? Why on Irk would you be—” Zim paused, and Dib could _feel_ the tension weigh down on his shoulders. “Did you—” Zim’s voice dropped down to a whisper, the quietest Dib ever heard the invader, “did you let the Dib-human in here?”

“YEAH!” Gir screamed.

Zim growled and Dib flinched as it escalated into a high-pitched scream. “Computer! Lock down the base! Don’t let the Dib-beast escape!”

Red lights and alarms blared loudly. Dib scrambled to gather his backpack and get out the of the vent. Zim’s screams continued to echo in the vents as Dib clambered through them. He flinched and ended up crashing into the walls, making more noise than he’d like. Though, Zim probably knew where he was anyway, so it didn’t matter.

Dib reached the entrance and fell down onto the table he’d pushed underneath to climb into the vent. His back ached and his lungs screamed at him to slow down, but adrenaline was coursing through his body. He somehow made it to his feet and willed them to run to the front door. If he was outside, he could escape Zim’s grasp—

Dib’s feet flew out from underneath him. He shrieked as he landed on the floor in a heap. While he scrambled to his feet again, sharp claws raked across his skin and sent Dib howling again.

Zim.

“Get off!” Dib screeched. He kicked and swung his fists, desperate for something to connect and set hm free. His knuckles knocked into something hard, and Zim screamed, loosening his grip. Dib was on his feet in seconds and bolting for the door.

“No!” Zim collided with him again and they both crashed to the floor, his backpack scattering off his shoulder. “I’m going to kill you, Dib-beast! Why won’t you leave Zim alone?!”

“Because you’re a fucking alien who’s going to destroy my planet! I’ll never stop bothering you!” Dib threw another punch, but his arm was restrained by a PAK leg, followed by the rest of his limbs.

“You didn’t stop me yesterday. You didn’t stop me last night. You’re not stopping me now. You’re slacking, human,” Zim growled, a sadistic grin showing his zipped teeth.

“I _will_ stop you! You’re not gonna turn anyone into zombies! I’ll make sure of it!”

Zim laughed, long and evil. “Never, you pathetic worm-best! Never! You’ll never stop Zim no matter—”

“Mini Mary!” Gir’s squeal interrupted the rivals heated argument. “What were you doing in Mary’s backpack? I thought I told you to stay with me?”

Dib and Zim turned their heads in the direction of Gir’s voice and found him hunched over Dib’s backpack, cradling the doll in his arms.

“Gir! Put that thing down and help your master! This is no time for—”

Dib punched the Irken in the jaw. His distraction by Gir had caused him to loosen his grip on Dib’s wrists, and Dib wasn’t going to let that opportunity go to waste. Zim staggered off him, holding his injured jaw, and Dib kicked him in the stomach for good measure.

Once freed of the spider limbs, Dib slid over to his backpack and grabbed the laser gun. He shot at Zim, not really aiming for him, just trying to get him to back away; though he did hit him a few times, which was always a bonus.

“Wretched little human! Horrible pig-smelly! Gir, attack! Defend your master!”

“Yes, Sir!” Gir’s eyes turned red and he turned to face Dib. He still had the doll in his hands

“Gir! Zim’s gonna take Mini Mary away!” Dib accused.

Gir’s eyes went teal again, hesitating. “What?”

“What?” Zim asked.

“That’s right. If you attack me, Zim’s gonna take Mini Mary and you won’t see him again!”

“No!” Gir screeched, his eyes turning red again as he turned to face Zim. “I wants Mini Mary!”

“Gir, no! Bad Gir! Don’t you—” Zim’s scolding was interrupted as Gir launched himself at the Irken. The two rolled around on the floor for a bit while Dib quickly grabbed his backpack and belongings save for the doll, which was still locked in Gir’s death grip.

Dib considered leaving now as he had everything and Gir was busy doing Dib’s dirty work, but then he remembered that Zim still had the device. Dib couldn’t leave without destroying it first. As the two rolled around on the floor, Dib grabbed the Membracelet out of his backpack and held the device behind his back. He cautiously approached the two, and when they broke away for a brief moment, Dib slapped the bracelet onto Zim’s wrists. The device roared to life and captured Zim’s arms, legs, mouth in a metal prison, binding them together and preventing the Irken from screaming. Dib was glad he decided not to test the device beforehand.

Zims yells and shrieks were muffled behind metal and came off as a lot less threatening. Dib couldn’t suppress the laugh that came to his lips, and soon he was rolling on the floor. “You’ll kill me, you say? Good luck doing that when you can’t even move your legs and arms!” Dib continued to mock the Irken while he screamed behind his metal gag. Once Dib was done laughing, or at least had himself under enough control to stand up and function, he walked over to Zim and crushed the zombie slave device under his boot (it must’ve fallen out while Zim and Gir struggled) all while maintaining a cocky smirk and eye contact. Zim screamed when the device was shattered.

“No zombie slaves for you today, Zim!” Dib spat, smirking. Zim’s eyes were bulging so far out of his skull that they looked like they were about to pop out. Zim’s fury only added to Dib’s amusement, though.

“Another victory for Earth! Score one for the human race! Score nothing for the Zim…thingy…race.” Dib blushed that he temporarily forgot that Zim’s race were Irkens. He looked away from Zim as he attempted to burst out laughing and insult him

“Master,” the Computers voice echoed from the ceiling, “The Tallest are still on the line. Are you going to finish your call with them?”

More muffled screaming erupted from Zim and Dib could feel his gaze boring into his back. Dib didn’t bother trying to understand what the roach was saying as he grabbed his backpack and laser gun and headed for the door. He considered grabbing the doll back from Gir, but after he had willingly attacked Zim over the threat of losing the doll (under Dib’s manipulation) Dib decided that it was best he leave it with Gir for the moment. The doll was attracted to him anyway, so one way or another, the doll would probably end up back in his possession. Zim continued to scream muffled obscenities at Dib as he walked out the door.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This AU was inspired by [Ollisuu](https://ollisuu.tumblr.com/)
> 
> The lovely artwork featured in this chapter is by [Celestial Starpower](https://celestial-starpower.tumblr.com/) and can be found [here](https://celestial-starpower.tumblr.com/post/613428108282003456/coraline-au)


End file.
